Yashveer Yadav is enjoying his new role as a retail entrepreneur. A few years ago, Yadav, who is in his 40s, quit his banking job to become a franchisee of fast food chain Burger Singh. He started with a food court model at Ambience Mall in Gurugram in 2022, and then a dining-plus-takeaway model in Rajouri Garden in West Delhi last year. He is currently scouting locations for a third outlet. But this time, there is a difference. He needs to invest only about 50 per cent in setting up the new store, with Burger Singh investing the rest.

After 11 years in the business of selling burgers, and several pivots, Burger Singh, founded by Kabir Singh, is now experimenting with a new co-investment model of franchise development; Yadav is a thrilled beneficiary. The new model, says Singh, has been inspired by insights gleaned from the performance of its stores.

But first, a bit of background. When Singh, who had been with The Pint Room, a pioneering beer cafe, started the quaintly named Burger Singh in 2014, which offered very desi flavoured burgers, he went in for a company-owned, company-operated structure with small-format stores focused on delivery — a la Domino’s. But the growth of delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy necessitated a change in the model.

In 2019 or so, the retail-focused pivot happened with a franchise model, but Singh describes how it was strongly differentiated from the big American burger brands, which required large store formats (over 3,000 sq ft) and imported equipment, leading to a steep cost of setting up (₹2.5-4 crore).

Burger Singh opted for smaller, 800 sq ft store formats, and used locally manufactured equipment, which meant a franchisee only needed to invest around ₹50 lakh. This economical model allowed Burger Singh to rapidly expand into tier-2, -3 and -4 cities. The chain also pivoted from a premium pricing strategy to mass pricing.

And now comes the interesting new refinement in the franchisee model. Singh describes how they found that some franchisees were more profitable than others. “From our side we were providing the same fit-outs, training, skills, help with marketing, and support, as well as help with finding the right location... so this was curious.”

When they looked deeper, Singh says, “The key difference was that in stores where the owners spent a few hours, the customer experience was better, and there were repeat footfalls. So we started profiling the owners.”

Singh says they discovered that there were two types of franchises. One an investor owner, who delegated everything, and another an owner-manager. “In the latter, the outcomes were better, the hygiene was better, the experience was better.”

So, this led to the new initiative last month, targeting owner-managers, where Burger Singh invests ₹20 lakh and the franchisee invests ₹24 lakh, with the pre-condition that he or she would be present at the store for 90 hours a month. The initiative will start with 50 stores at first.

According to Singh, the chain receives around 800 franchisee requests monthly, but only 7-10 are onboarded. Burger Singh currently has around 185 live stores and another 75 in the fit-out stage. A royalty fee of 4 per cent is collected from franchisees, which are also required to spend 4 per cent on local marketing.

As a category, Singh says, burgers may be growing faster than pizzas. A 2023 report does show that burgers and sandwiches enjoy a growth rate of 19-22 per cent while pizzas clocked 13-18 per cent. Singh feels that the new 10-minute services like Swiggy’s Bolt could be well suited for chains like his. “Our internal target for burger preparation is four minutes,” he says.

For now, though, he is banking on his new entrepreneur class of 2025 to help the chain take a bigger bite of the burger business.

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Published on June 29, 2025