Irish House parent K Hospitality bets ₹550 crore on UK-based Wagamama’s India expansion

New Delhi: K Hospitality, which claims to be India's largest privately held food and beverage company with a portfolio including brands such as Copper Chimney, Nando's India and Irish House, in addition to listed entity Travel Food Services, is earmarking ₹550 crore to expand the Wagamama brand in India as its India partner, said Karan Kapur, executive director of the company and founder of Kliff Ventures, in an exclusive interview to ET.

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"We've allocated ₹550 crore, which we believe will be the investment needed towards scaling up the brand across the country. We have got very good consumer feedback on both dine-in and delivery since we launched the brand last year," said Kapur. The company aims to open over 100 Wagamama outlets over 10 years, extending the footprint of the UK-based fuss-free Asian fare chain.


"We realised a joint venture partnership is a great way to get everyone aligned with the same approach versus a typical franchise partnership, which has its own pros and cons. A JV just brought in a strong focus and that's where we came and said, okay, now let's put in a plan where we do believe we can scale up to about 100 stores," he added.

Kapur said the company has launched the brand at the new airport in Navi Mumbai. It will launch more stores in Delhi in the near term and will expand to other cities going ahead.

"Besides the Asian cuisine being so popular, other factors such as an uptick in spending patterns on dining out, and a growth in GDP per capita, and other levers are giving us that confidence that this is the right time to enter the country and grow fast," he added. Kapur said K Hospitality closed last year with about ₹3500 crore in terms of system-wide sales and has been growing upwards of 20% for the last 15 years.

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"We do believe the trajectory will continue for the next few years, so even this year I think we'll grow, around that range," he added.

K Hospitality's listed entity Travel Food Services that operates in the Indian airport travel QSR and lounge sectors reported a 36% jump in its consolidated net profit to around ₹129 crore in quarter one of this fiscal.