Dabur's food biz plans global restaurant chain

Lite Bite Foods promoted by Dabur's vice chairman Amit Burman plans to be a global quick service restaurant chain in the country and abroad akin to McDonald's, a key company official said.
 
"We are upbeat of the rollout without neglecting the unit level economics and the downturn," Amit Burman, chairman, Lite Bite Foods said at the Food Forum India today.
 
Organised food and beverages market is pegged at Rs 7200 crore and unorganised market stands at Rs 90,000 crore. The company plans to invest Rs 200 crore in opening 200 restaurants in the country by 2012.
 
"Food retail growth is 30 per cent and still dominated by mom and pop stores. There is a huge opportunity to tap," Burman said.
 
The company also plans to grow its business in corporate catering. It has set up Food Union, its food court in Infosys and Microsoft campuses at Hyderabad and is looking at expanding the business.
 
Food Union consists of various restaurants and cuisine formats like Fres Co, a joint venture with a Spanish food company, Punjab Grill,a joint venture with foodies Jiggs Kalra and Zorawar Kalra, Asia foods a JV with Mumbai-based restraunteur Nikhil Chip, Pino's a pizza and pasta eatery, Big Gulp, a beverages joint, Baker, a cake shop, Street Foods of India, a value meal restaurant that serves all kinds of cuisines from Lucknowi chaats, kababs to south Indian and north Indian meals. Lite Bite is also a franchisee for Subway in India.
 
The company also has two food courts in Delhi under the brand name of Food Union Clicks, a stand alone, high street format. "In the short term we will establish a pan India presence for Lite Bite and in the long term we see the potential for our speciality restaurant like Street Foods of India to be the Indian version of McDonald's globally," said Burman while adding that the company has already invested Rs 40 crore in the last one year to open 38 restaurants.
 
Speaking of the corporate catering business opportunity, Burman said, "Corporate catering is a Rs 250 crore business growing at 20 per cent per annum." Lite Bite also recently won the bid to open two of its restaurants Fres Co and Baker at the Delhi national airport.
 
The ambitious plans for the food retail were made even as Dabur's fast moving consumer goods retail business - New U stores plans have slowed down. Dabur had earlier planned to 20 stores to 12 stores in the current year. "Food retail has higher margins and better cost control as compared to FMCG retail," explained Burman who is also considering resizing and relocation of some of the large format New U stores for better profitability.
 
Dabur which is the maker of brands like Vatika and Real juice is also launching another new fruit-based, non-carbonated drink in the next one month, Burman told reporters on the sidelines of the conclave. he however reused to divulge more details on the launch.