IndiaRetailBiz

Vishal Retail, the Delhi-based retailer known mostly for retailing apparel and household items, which recently had a highly successful IPO, according to a Business Standard report, is looking at foraying into quick service food restaurants.

Vishal is currently operating 54 stores in 42 cities occupying gross retail space of 14 lakh sq ft. It is in the process of setting up 100 more stores at an investment of about Rs. 200 crore. While, the big format stores will occupy 25,000 to 30,000 sq feet of space, the small ones are likely to occupy 5,000 sq feet.

Although, the group’s food retailing plans are in initial stage, it is expected to set up 10,000 quick service Indian snacks’ restaurants modelled on the lines of McDonalds.

Fast food retailing, though popular among customers for centuries in India, began becoming organised only after the entry of the US-based quick food retail chains like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Dominos and KCF in India.

While every city, big or small, boasts of a popular quick food retailer, none could expand beyond his city because branded retailing calls for consistency in both quality of food and service to customer. Some attempts have been made in recent times to organise snacks retailing, notably by Mumbai-based Vada-Pao maker Jumbo King.

Vishal is also mulling to set up 25 destination centres on major highways of India. Each of these will occupying 10-20 acres of land. Apart from retailing food these facilities will also offer entertainment in the form of spas and waterparks.

“We want to become the world’s largest retailer and have formats all over the world,” said company chairman and managing director Ram Chandra Agarwal. He was speaking on the sidelines of the Retail Leadership Summit organized by the Retailer Association of India in Mumbai.