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Jumbo King, a success story in traditional food
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Monday, 04 October, 2010, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, Mumbai
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It all started when he went to London to sell self-owned Indian sweets. Dheeraj Gupta, today the MD of Jumbo King, carefully observed Burger King's franchise business pattern and thought to apply a similar model here. "Vada Pav was the obvious food choice as Mumbaikars love it!" Gupta exclaimed. With an aim to serve Indian burger (Vada Pav) in hygienic and organised manner, Gupta started Jumbo King Pvt. Ltd - a dedicated Vada Pav chain company in August 2001.
Today, Jumbo King has about 45 outlets (self-owned & franchise) across Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Baroda. In an exclusive interview Dheeraj Gupta talk about his current and future steps to make "Vada Pav" a globally popular food. Excerpts:
It's almost a decade since you started Jumbo King. How has been the journey so far?
Till date the journey is impressive and fruitful. Initially there were lots of objections, as I had priced the Vada Pav at Rs 5 whereas small competitors sold it for as little as Rs 2-3 in the market.
Our selling proposition was hygiene. We experimented with two outlets outside a railway station. From ordinary ones, we started offering Vada Pav with cheese, flat patties, round bread, and toasted bread.
The prices of Vada Pav have gone up from Rs 5 to Rs 8-10 minimum. Did this affect your turnover?
Not really. Convenience foods sector in India is very price sensitive. When we increased our prices, volume tends to decrease but annual sales turnover registered a healthy growth.
How many outlets do you have outside Mumbai. Any plan to take Vada Pav abroad?
Outside Mumbai, Jumbo King has its outlets in Gujarat. At present, we have nine Jumbo King outlets in Ahmedabad and Baroda. Our Franchisee relations team is in talk with keen franchisees. We have chalked out drastic expansion plans in Gujarat and Mumbai.
We also aim to reach 100 outlets in the coming 2-3 years in Mumbai. After 100 stores we may seek to foray into international markets.
Who are your competitors? What is your USP?
In Mumbai there are over 20,000 local Vada Pav sellers. People who eat at Jumbo King will not choose other Vada Pav and vice versa. We attract newer customers and develop faith among existing customers through hygiene and quality service. So far, we have been winning customer trust and hopefully we will groom Jumbo King in a better way.
We give clear instructions to our vendors to buy masala (ingredients) and oil from certified companies. We also have authorised raw material supplier for all our outlets.
What is your annual turnover, market share and growth rate?
Currently, we have only 38 outlets in Mumbai and Thane area (20 self-owned and 18 franchises). If we compare this numbers with 20,000 Vada Pav sellers then we have only about 2% market share. Vada Pav in Mumbai is a big business. During recession we too faced a setback like other organised players, but the pre and post-recession period registered 50% growth rate per year.
What are the terms for franchising Jumbo King?
The minimum requirement is 300sq.ft shop/outlet at a prime location, investment of Rs 12 lakh which will provide back-end service, training, maintenance, control, marketing and system upgradation for the vendor.
We also offer certain sites for the investors. Currently, our franchisee relations team is negotiating for 10-12 locations in Mumbai. Two or three people can jointly open a franchise store.
How many Vada Pav varieties do you offer? Are you planning to add a few more?
Basically, Jumbo King has four Vada Pav recipes, namely Butter, Cheese, Grill and Brown Bread. Further we add flavours and offer about 16 varieties of Vada Pav. For instance, butter range offers Butter Jumbo King, Butter Grill Jumbo King, Butter Cholle Jumbo King and Butter Schezwan Jumbo King.
Our new recipe would be Paneer Jumbo King. In the coming 2-3 months we would be adding new range of Vada Pav in the menu.
Apart from Vada Pav you have been selling many other products. Tell us something about food aligned products?
Along with Vada Pav we offer soft drink beverage range. After eating something, Indians have a habit of drinking something. So we started selling lassi, soft drinks like Pepsi and other optional beverages.
Urban cities are rapidly catching up with western lifestyle. Do you think this will change/hamper Vada Pav eating habits of Mumbaikars?
Though our metros are trending towards western culture, I don't think our metro citizens will opt for western eating format/culture. Today, people are looking for healthy, warm food. With Jumbo King we have done much more to serve traditional Vada Pav in hygienic and tasty way. Our sophisticated technology, centralised kitchens at Malad, and bakeries at Vasai and Thane have helped us bring uniqueness in our products.
I am sure that many in the coming generation will go in for healthy, tasty and traditional food like Jumbo King.
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