McDonald's to invest Rs 500cr to build its footprint

Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt Ltd (HRPL), master franchisee for West and South India operations of McDonald’s is planning to invest Rs 500 crore to build up its footprint by adding more restaurants taking the number count from 175 to 250 restaurants over the next five years across West and South India.

The group is planning to add over 35 stores every year across formats and brand extensions spanning standalone restaurants, drive-thru’s, 24/7, McDelivery, dessert kiosks and hire 10,000 people to staff these formats over the next five years, reveals a report published in Hindu Business Line.

“The South market is a key focus area for us. We opened the first McDonald’s restaurant on Brigade Road in Bangalore in 2006, and today we have 74 restaurants in the South including Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kochi and Mysore. We will open 60-70 per cent of the restaurants in existing cities and the balance 30-40 per cent will be in new markets to increase our reach. In the West, we are focusing primarily on Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh,” Arvind Singhal, Director – South, McDonald’s India (West & South), told BusinessLine.

HRPL serves 165 million customers annually at its 189 McDonald’s restaurants in Telangana, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and parts of Madhya Pradesh and provides direct employment to over 7,500 employees.

The brand offers both vegetarian and non-vegetarian menu in South India targeting its customer. “In Bangalore, 55 per cent of our menu is vegetarian, whereas in Chennai, the menu is 55 per cent non-vegetarian, and in Kerala, where customers prefer non-vegetarian food, just 20 per cent of the menu is vegetarian,” elaborated Singhal.

McDonald’s introduced three new saucy wraps in August – Aloo Wrap, Egg Wrap and Grilled Chicken Wrap which will be permanent additions to its core offering of burgers and fries.