Baskin Robbins, the world's largest chain of ice-cream specialty store, is planning to add more than 60 outlets over the next five months to the existing 135 in the country. The company, a joint venture between the UK-based spirits and quick service restaurant company Allied Domecq Plc and Maharashtra Dairy Products, will open about 24 company-owned outlets by the end of the current financial year.
Pankaj Chaturvedi, chief executive officer of Baskin Robbins India, said: "We plan to open such stores in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Chandigarh and Goa. We also plan to spread our network to about 200 outlets by the end of current fiscal."
The company is also planning to bring in new ice-cream brands of Allied Domecq to the country.
"With the success of the franchise system in the country, we look forward to bringing down other brands of Allied Domecq in the future," Chaturvedi said. Allied Domecq owns brands such as Jamoca Almond Fudge, Pralines n' Cream, Mint Chocolate Chip and Very Berry Strawberry.
The company has created nearly 1,000 ice-cream flavours in the last 55 years of its existence.
This includes, 31, which is still part of the Baskin-Robbins logo commemorating the company's 1953's promise to offer 31 ice-cream varieties in a month.
The ice-cream major, which started its Indian operations in 1993, owns more than 4 per cent of the Rs 400-crore organised market. According to industry sources, the ice-cream market, including premium, mass segment and unorganised sector is estimated at Rs 1200 crore.
"The investment into the brand-building have been large in the last eight years and plan of further expansion of parlours and other forms of product distribution plans are on-line," he said.
The company targets a turnover of more than Rs 20 crore in the current financial year as against last years' Rs 17 crore. "We have a long-term plan for the country, and India has the privilege of being one of the seven countries that manufactures Baskin Robbins ice-cream in the world," a senior company official said.
The company has about 2,500 outlets in the US and more than 2,100 locations in various other countries including Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.
