The Hindu Business Line : Tidel Park gets Planet Yumm food court

Chennai April 1 Oriental Cuisines Pvt Ltd, the owners of Planet Yumm chain of food courts, has set up a 12,000 sq ft food court at Tidel Park and plans to open more in the leading IT parks and commercial buildings in the city.

The Planet Yumm at Tidel Park, with a seating capacity of 240, is to open from tomorrow with the formal launch on April 14.

At the time of its inauguration, 10 leading restaurant and beverage brands will be offering a range of cuisines at the food court at the information technology infrastructure facility on the IT corridor.

Mr Srinath Raghavan, Director, Oriental Cuisines Pvt Ltd, said Planet Yumm will expand the number of outlets to 16 over the next six months.

It now operates 10 food courts in South India with 8 of them in Chennai and two in Madurai and Bangalore.

It has enquiries from Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata to set up the Planet Yumm range of food courts, according to Mr Raghavan.

By June, it would have outlets in Kerala with one each coming up in the Info Park (15,000 sq ft), Kochi and Techno Park (30,000 sq ft), Thiruvananthapuram and at Ascendas (30,000 sq ft) in Hyderabad.

In Chennai itself it plans to set up outlets at the Olympia Tech Park, Ampa, and the Mahindra World City.

Mr Srinath Raghavan said that there is a ready captive clientele at the IT parks which make them an attractive option. For instance, at the Tidel Park, there are over 14,000 employees and a visitor base of over 2,000 a day. The advantage to the patrons is that they get a varied cuisine to suit their palates. Earlier, even at Tidel, the people had only the traditional cafeteria option. But Planet Yumm broke that mould at the Ascendas IT Park in Chennai where it introduced the multi-brand multi-cuisine option with its food courts.

Explaining the mix of brands that participate in a Planet Yumm, he said Oriental Cuisines has tied up with international brands such as Yum International, the owners of KFC and Pizza Hut, and with Domino's and Subway for the right of first refusal to participate in a Planet Yumm food court. To this would be added leading local brands and those that offer the traditional cuisine.

For instance, at the Tidel Park the participants are Domino's Pizza, Subway, New Yorker and local leaders such as Ratna Café, Virudhunagar, and brands from Oriental Cuisines' own stable like Wang's Kitchen, Qwikys, and Kebab House, and a leading player in the ice cream segment, Arun Ice Creams.

Also, Juice.Net, a new chain of juice shops, promoted by Mr M. Mahadevan, Director, Oriental Cuisines, and Mr P. Suresh, Sangeetha Caterers and Consultant, the owner of Sangeetha chain of restaurants, is setting up its first outlet at the Planet Yumm in Tidel Park. They see Juice.Net as a corporate social responsibility initiative with a portion of the profits going to educating the needy.

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