Connaught Plaza Restaurants Ltd (CPRL) is planning to invest ₹400-600 crore to double the number of its McDonald’s outlets and to modernise the existing outlets over the next three years. CPRL is the burger chain’s franchise for North and East regions. The company currently operates 170 McDonald’s restaurants.

Rajeev Ranjan, MD, McDonald’s India-North and East told businessline, “The quick service restaurant sector is expected to grow at about 15-16 per cent CAGR over the next couple of years. There are very few sectors that will be growing at this pace. While there are macro-economic challenges such as inflationary pressures in the short term, we are pretty optimistic about the long-term future.”

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Outlining the factors that are driving the growth of the QSR segment, he added that the consumers’ eating habits are evolving and with increase in disposable incomes their aspirations are also growing at a rapid pace. 

“Currently, we operate 170 restaurants. We plan to double this number over the next three years. We will be putting investments of about ₹400-600 crore for adding new restaurants as well as modernising the existing restaurants. We are looking to tap into opportunities in the tier-1 and tier-2 towns, highways among others,” he added.

Globally, McDonald’s has been refurbishing its restaurants with the “Experience of the future” (EOTF) format which offers features such as contemporary interiors, technology enabled kiosks and focus on table service. “All our restaurants will be modernised to the EOTF format over the next two years,” Ranjan said.

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The company is also betting on the McCafe format.

“McCafe presents a big opportunity. We expect to have 25 per cent of our outlets to be on McCafe format by the end of the year offering the full range of hot and cold coffee, shakes and baked food products. We would like it to be seen as a brand within McDonald’s with high coffee credibility,” Ranjan explained.

On inflationary pressures, he said, ”We are growing ahead of the pre-pandemic numbers. We had taken price hikes last year and we keep evaluating the environment. We are also working with our supply partners to leverage economies of scale,” he added.

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