Back to the Thali

First juices, then ready-to-cook pastes and finally the dive into quick service restaurants two years ago has pretty much completed the circle for Amit Burman, Vice-Chairman of Dabur and now Co-founder of Lite Bite Foods.

The venture is focussed on food and beverage retailing, through casual dining, food courts, express outlets and QSRs with brands such as Street Foods of India and Rapps.

"Food as a category is growing, but within this pie we have reason to believe that Indian food options, in particular value-for-money QSRs, will witness the biggest spike," says Burman, who had spearheaded Dabur India's entry into processed foods by setting up Dabur Foods in 1999. This company launched the Real brand of juices and cooking pastes among other things. He stepped down as CEO when the unit was integrated with Dabur India in 2007 and was appointed Vice Chairman of Dabur India.

Around the same time, Burman ventured into food retail in his personal capacity by launching Lite Bite along with some other investors. Burman also runs nine franchises for Subway, the US sandwich brand. Burman has had a successful brush with food outlets in shopping malls so far.

"We find that almost 40 per cent of food is sold out of food courts in malls across Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida," he says. While his fine dining options have been introduced in other cities, Street Foods of India is restricted to Delhi and the National Capital Region.

"This is because it is dependent on a central commissary and till we find that there is an opportunity to open at least five outlets in a cluster in another city, we will not go there," he says.

An average meal at Street Food outlet costs Rs 150 and the big crowd puller is rajma chawal for Rs 25. There are just 25 items, including vegetarian and non-vegetarian thalis, chaats, dosas, tikkas and kebabs. Burman claims all eight outlets of Street Foods of India are cash positive.

Lite Bite Foods has so far invested Rs 200 crore to establish a pan-Indian network of 200 restaurants. But Burman is not making a growth dash: his priority is to stabilise the concept.

STREET FOODS OF INDIA

• COMPANY: Lite Bite Foods
• OUTLETS NOW: Eight in NCR
• GROWTH PLAN: Pan-India
• BUSINESS MODEL: Company-owned
• FUNDING: Amit Burman
• HOT PRODUCTS: Rajma Chawal, Thalis