The Hindu Business Line : US Pizza launching sandwich, fast food brands

Expansion plans
Outlets may be set up in heritage properties targeting tourists.
May tie up with large real estate owners such as HPCL to open restaurants on their properties.

Sravanthi Challapalli

Chennai, April 22 US Pizza, which recently announced a Rs 500-crore expansion over the next three years, is also launching two other brands.

One is a sandwich brand called ToastyZ, which will open its first outlet in the first week of May in Hyderabad. The other, yet unnamed, is an Indian fast food brand which will get off the ground in about two months.

Indian context

“In India, fast food is fragmented. It could be a vada pao in one region, a kathi roll in another, kachodi elsewhere … Our fast food can be packed, edible on the go, and non-messy, and in the Indian context, that would mean samosa, kachodi, the rather forgotten stuffed paratha, vada pao and the like,” explained Mr Akbar Khwaja, Managing Director, US Pizza, adding that most of the outlets would be takeaway counters rather than dine-in.

ToastyZ outlets would take the form of small cafes that serve coffee, tea, drinks and sandwiches made of multigrain breads and baguettes.

Healthy options

Here too, the endeavour would be to provide healthy and nutritive options. US Pizza also plans to export ready-to-eat Indian fast food products, mainly vegetarian and non-vegetarian kathi rolls, and pizzas to Europe, targeting the European consumer.

Franchise network

Recently, Nirmal Kotecha of Kotecha Capital acquired 49 per cent in United Pizza Restaurants, which owns the US Pizza brand.

The brand was founded by a food technologist Mr Vahid Berenjian in Sweden in 1988, but was built up only in India, which it entered in 1995, much before most other multinational pizza and fast food chains came in. US Pizza aims to build a master franchise network in various regions of the country, as it has done with Royal Eatery for the Saurashtra region of Gujarat.

At a press conference attended by media persons visiting the US Pizza restaurant in Rajkot recently, Royal Eatery promoter Mr Mandhatasinh Jadeja of Rajkot’s erstwhile royal family and Mr Khwaja signed a memorandum of understanding to open 14 outlets in Saurashtra other than Rajkot.

Mr Jadeja, who is also restoring and developing heritage properties for tourists in the region, states he may even set up US Pizza outlets in these hotels.

Mr Khwaja says US Pizza is seeking such large partnerships Statewise all over the country. It has finalised one such deal in Kerala.

It will own the real estate for its flagship outlets, though. While it does not foresee entering the capital market or diluting its equity further, it will look at tie-ups in the near future with large real estate owners such as HPCL which will enable it to open restaurants on their properties.

Of the 1,000 outlets it hopes to have up and running in the next three years, takeaway and express counters will account for 40-45 per cent while dine-in will form 20 per cent.

However, dine-in and delivery will account for the highest value share.

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