Lite Bite Foods is set to acquire four restaurant brands from Bellona Hospitality, which is the food and beverage arm of real estate player Phoenix Mills Group.

The restaurant company, which has been on an expansion spree in the past few months, expects to close the current financial year with over ₹450 crore in revenues.

New brands

The four brands are Shizusan, 212 All Day, 212 All Good, and Bar Bar. These brands are currently operational across Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru.

Rohit Aggarwal, Director, Lite Bite Foods, said the acquisition will help the company diversify its portfolio and widen its footprint. “These brands have a distinct positioning and we believe there is potential to expand them further,” he added.

The past three years have been challenging for the restaurant industry with the implementation of demonetisation, GST, withdrawal of input tax credit and intensifying competition from food aggregators.

But aggressive expansion across airports and tier-2 cities helped the restaurant firm maintain its double-digit growth rate.

“We have on an average been growing at 30-40 per cent year-on-year. We expect to close this financial year with revenues of over ₹450 crore,” he said.

The company particularly focussed on aggressive expansion of its QSR brands in 2018.

“In FY2019-20, we expect to open 20 outlets,” Aggarwal added.

Expansion plans

Lite Bite Foods currently operates 218 outlets and is known for brands such as Punjab Grill, Street Foods by Punjab Grill, Zambar, and Asia Seven.

The company has also been strategically expanding abroad in Washington DC, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Bangkok in the past few years.

It expects to open a 150-seater outlet of Punjab Grill in Washington next month.

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