Pulse Foods to open outlets in London, Dubai, Muscat

Lucknow, June 29 (UNI) Fast growing Indian restaurant chain Pulse Foods plans to open outlets in London, Dubai and Muscat to offer quality North Indian food in foreign shores.

Launched in May last year, the food division of the Rs 1,000 crore Poddar Heritage Group, Pulse Foods India Pvt Ltd already owns 12 outlets in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Gurgaon, Ludhiana, Faridabad, Bangalore and Pune.

Addressing the media while launching the Lucknow outlet here today, Pusle Foods CEO Neeraj Jain said the company has set a target to take the total number of restaurants at 60 by the end of the current fiscal.

Pulse Foods clocked a revenue of Rs one crore last financial year, which was also its first year of operation. The Poddar Group is headed by Saroj K Poddar, who is also the current president of FICCI.

However, it has aggressive growth plans lined up for FY07 and is confident to register revenue in excess of Rs 12 crore.

''The organised quick service food business in India at present has been estimated at over Rs 2,000 crore and is growing at 40 per cent. There are about 100 million potential quick service food customers,'' he added.

''Out aim is to create, develop and built a first-of-its-kind, internationally Indian food brand providing authentic, standardised, hygienic, quality Indian food at reasonable prices, Mr Jain said.

''There is a huge business opportunity here with high growth-rate in per capita income of individuals, increasing urbanisation, increasing disposable income, rise of nuclear families and the growth in number of Indian working women,'' he maintained.

Pulse Foods will soon open outlets in Mumbai, Chennai, Surat and Vishakapatnam to increase its foodprints in the South.

''We are majorly focussing in the South, since there is lack of quality restaurants offering quality North Indian food, ' the CEO underlined.

''North Indian food is still classified under the myth of street side 'dhabas'. We want to fill this gap by creating Indian food counterpart of McDonald's and Pizza Hut,'' he asserted.

Mr Jain also did not rule out the company diversifying into confectionaries and desserts in near future.

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