Food is the essence of human life. Whether in lunch break, tantalizing gossip session, or parties food is always the main attraction. With passing time, corporate world has enraptured the educated society, where the lion’s share of the population is related to certain profession, and it demands them to work for long hours. But people’s never-ending craving for gourmet foods is not at all dimming rather it is evolving every day. Restaurants or food delivery services are the only option left to them as the savior of their savory.

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." - Virginia Woolf
In recent couple of years Indian Food & Beverage industry has transmigrated itself to a whole new concept where people are so addicted and accustomed to these new trends. One of them is quick Service Restaurant. Owing to this new concept, several restaurants have grown from street vendors to multibillion-dollar businesses. This tremendous success of this concept of the industry can be attributed to the rising popularity of dining out, favorable demographics, increasing disposable income, and more working women. As a result, organized players have expanded beyond metros to small villages and cities.

Eat good food, when your mood is not good!!

Growing Age of QSR Brands
The Indian landscape is going through metamorphosis, where in every dimension it is evolving rapidly. Today, tier II and tier III cities are emerging as new financial hubs. These markets have enormous revenue generation potential for new businesses, particularly in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry. Although QSR brands have been present in India for decades, the market has undergone significant changes, and there is tremendous potential for success in these markets. In FY 2022, dine-in had the highest share 44.23%. But in the future, the take-away and home delivery segments are expected to grow significantly and have a higher market share of 21.25% and 40.81%, respectively, in FY 2027 as compared to dine-in.

One of the pivotal reasons of this evolving growth is the increase in purchasing power and a preference for branded products. A string of businesses that first began nearly six decades ago, today, make up some of the most popular brands in the world like McDonalds and Taco Bell. Since then, this market paradigm has changed, especially in India.

In the landscape of startup-based economy, a greater number of QSR brands are coming in the limelight and earning millions in just few months of operation. Regarding this, CEO and Founder of Burger Singh, Kabir Jeet Singh quoted, "QSR brands have great potential for success in tier II and III cities as they are emerging markets for fast food chains." People’s love for fast food seems never ending, as it is quickly prepared, takes less time to eat and easily available in the market. Kabir Jeet Singh also mentioned that the annual spending of middle-class households on fast-food restaurants in India’s Tier II and III cities has grown by 108% in the last two years, from ₹2,500 to ₹5,400.

Quality food is always preferred by the mass, whether you take much time or less, quality and taste should not suffer. QSR brands of today are using technologies and joining hands with distributors to procure supplies at a reasonable cost. QSR restaurants focus on quickly serving food and use ready-to-cook ingredients. To maintain the taste and quality of the food and raw materials they source from a central location and after that transform them into ready to cook state.

Let’s talk about few growing QSR brands which are shaping their future with good food.

Samosa Singh: A couple from Bengaluru, Nidhi Singh and Shikhar Veer Singh left their high-paying jobs to start their own food startup called “Samosa Singh” in 2015. The idea for the startup came from Shikhar's love for samosas and his desire to make it a popular snack in the city. Their immense love for starting their own business made them sell their house ₹80 lakhs to fund the startup. Presently, the company has an annual turnover of ₹45 crores, and around ₹12 lahks per day. They have started franchise system to expand their business beyond the state boundary. The company which was started with samosa gradually, has introduced few varieties of north Indian delicacies paneer butter Masala Kulcha, samosa busket, customized thali and more. The USP of their product is the un-fried product’s shelf life is an impressive six months, using blast freezing technology without any preservatives. They have worked with INOX, PVR, Café Coffee Day and TCS. At INOX and PVR, Samosa Singh has its own branded kiosks. In total the company has seven outlets in Bengaluru. Samosa Singh now operates out of a large highly automated kitchen that can easily meet the current order size of 10,000 samosas a day.

The Biryani House: The Biryani House is India’s fastest-to-be cloud kitchen network and the only company that offers more than 50 varieties of Dum Biryani. In 2015, The Biryani House commenced its first outlet in Kalyan, Maharashtra by Sarvesh Chaubey. In 2021, it opened outlets in Delhi-NCR. In one master kitchen, there are 3-4 district units and 30 outlets consisting of Food on Wheels, Fine Dine and Shop In. Along with biriyani they are offering variety of kebabs and more north Indian delicacies. They are selling more than 10,000 orders per month. Sarvesh Choubey said that, their focus is to have India's biggest franchise network of like-minded franchise owners with whom they can work with common vision. The company further eyes for Rs.5 crore revenue by the end of 2022 with a total of 70 outlets pan-India. They started ten master cloud kitchens and 250 small units serving different categories through 100 delivery outlets, in Delhi and UP. The company has an international presence in Bahrain and Singapore and is planning to prosper more in the international market.

Burger Singh: The founder of the company, Kabir Jeet Singh, got the idea of this startup when he was studying in UK, as he was missing the indian style burgers. He then experimented with the patties by adding Indian spices to it which became an instant hit among his friends. After returning to India, he conducted extensive research, analyzed consumer preferences, and brought together a team that shared vision of creating India's largest homegrown QSR chain. He started Burger Singh from a 98 sq ft outlet in Gurugram in 2014. Amidst so many burger chains like Burger King, McDonanld it attracted people because of its homely taste of Indian spices. Their focus was on delivering great flavors, offering vegetarian options, and keeping the prices affordable - three things that Indians love when it comes to food. One of the attractive point of their business is they have a wide variety of vegetarian burgers which are missing in other brands. Their burgers have quirky names like Chicken Udta Punjab, Amritsari Murgh Makhani, Chicken United States of Punjab, and Chotu Singh Burgers. Recently, they have expanded rapidly in these cities to establish the food chain's presence in 14 states and 56 cities. They started with an investment of around INR 40 lakh but today the company is valued at ₹200 crores. The company plans to raise $10 million next year and planning to open 250 outlets.

Bakingo: Over the last few years, Bakingo has delivered products across India, including in Gurgaon, Delhi, Noida, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai. The company was founded by Himanshu Chawla in Gurgaon. The company has raised its first-ever round of growth capital of $16 million from private equity firm Faering Capital. The Bakingo team has built a ₹200 crore profitable brand that consistently delivers customer delight across the country. The brand offers a wide variety of cakes and desserts, including its signature cheesecake, gourmet cakes, jar cakes, and over 100 stock-keeping units. Moreover, the company also has the unique ability to customize more than 200 cake designs and deliver them within 2 hours in 13 cities. The company has expanded their operation in major metro cities like Jaipur, Chandigarh, Lucknow, and a few smaller cities such as Meerut, Panipat, Karnal, and Rohtak, with the goal of establishing a deeper, pan-India market presence. They have a sophisticated supply chain and logistics system, which starts from our state-of-the-art 15,000 sqft central kitchen. This brand has created a significant place in baking industry and has successfully secured a substantial investment of $16 million in order to expand their footprints across the country. In 2021-22, Bakingo achieved a turnover of ₹75 crore.

Samosa Party:Co-founders Diksha Pande and Amit Nanwani started the business in 2017, when they noticed there is no renowned brand who has innovated out of the most popular street snack of India, Samosa, which is the emotion of every Indians, and goes quite well with Tea or coffee. Grabbing this opportunity, they have introduced wide range of tea and coffee. With the online platform they started with a takeaway outlet in Bengaluru, in contrast, today, they are offering eight to nine variety of samosas in 15 locations in Bengaluru and also from all the leading online delivery platforms and their own website. The D2C brand records 50,000 orders per month and its customers consume close to 50 lakh samosas a year. When an already popular food comes with a touch of innovation without harming the taste, it grabs the attention very quickly. In each of their samosas, they write the filling in codes to avoid the confusion about flavors. If you take chicken & cheese samosa, you will notice a code ‘CNC’, for paneer filling they write ‘PANEER’, for noodles Filling ‘NOODLES’, for corn samosa They write ‘CORN’. This small innovation has become their USP. They have introduced the bucket samosa on the lines of bucket chicken wings. They have raised $2 million in a pre-Series ‘A’ round by Kalaari Capital. They are eyeing on a $3.65 billion opportunity in the Indian QSR space.

Wrap Up
A country where food palate differs after a few kilometres, it is very crucial to maintain and use proper texture, flavor and color of food, without harming the quality and taste. According to the data by Tracxn, With nearly 57 tier II and tier III cities in India, including Gurgaon, Noida, Chandigarh, Indore, Vadodara, Jaipur, Lucknow, Surat, Coimbatore, Kozhikode, Ludhiana, Vijayawada, Bhopal, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Kochi, Kollam, Mohali, and Mysore—the market size is worth $56.3 billion. The pandemic has wholly transformed the scenario of QSR brands and redefined the work culture of these brands. D2C channels have taken their business to the next level without investing much capital. In today’s context, more numbers of startups are hitting this segment of industry and coming out with flying colors. In India, there are about 490 QSR brands, of which 428 are currently functioning, and this segment has attracted investments worth $1.3 billion through 64 deals.

Indeed, India has become a trusted hub of startups which has an ambitious dream backed by innovative ideas & Tasty Foods!!!