Amit Burman-promoted Lite Bite Foods Pvt Ltd (LBF) is venturing into cloud kitchen services. The restaurant company, known for brands such as Punjab Grill and Zambar, plans to roll out 36 cloud kitchens in the next three years across five cities.
The company said the first cloud kitchen will become operational in Delhi in August. “LBF aims to open one kitchen every month and plans to expand it to Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad as well,” it added.
With consumers increasingly turning to aggregators for doorstep delivery of food, many leading restaurant chains have been foraying into the cloud kitchens business in recent times. With the spread of the pandemic, consumers remain cautious about dine-in services and continue to rely more on home delivery for food.
Rohit Aggarwal, Director, LFB, said: “The online food delivery segment in India is set to grow at around 12 per cent annually, with the current scenario giving it a boost. We are investing about ₹25 crore in LBF Cloud Kitchens and are targeting a turnover of ₹100 crore in the next three years.”
He added: “Ensuring sustainable growth and constant expansion, we plan to have all kitchens profitable at a unit level. We will be investing in state-of-the-art kitchen infrastructure, ensuring optimum utilisation of space at the minimum capex. Our staff will be fully trained on the best kitchen operating systems for delivery-based business.”
Food app launch
The company said it will soon be launching its own food app, called FOOGO, which will allow customers to browse and order food from all its restaurants, besides other aggregator platforms.
In a bid to serve the growing food delivery segment, LBF Cloud Kitchens will expand via two operating models — hybrid kitchens and QSR focussed kitchens.
“Each hybrid kitchen set-up will host a mix of brands both premium (Punjab Grill, Tres, YouMee and Zambar) and mass market brands. The QSR focussed kitchens will be an assortment of purely mass-market brands (Street Foods by Punjab Grill , Asia Seven Express , Zambar Tiffins and Rolls & Parathas, Meal in a Bowl),” the company added.