Lite Bite Foods launches 36 cloud kitchens across five cities

Gurgaon-based Lite Bite Foods, one of India’s leading food and beverage retail companies with renowned restaurant brands like Punjab Grill, TRES, You Mee, The Artful Baker, Zambar, Hahn’s Kitchen, Street foods by Punjab grill, Asia seven express, Baker Street and many more under its wings, is now venturing into cloud kitchen services with aggressive expansion plans. The giant is planning to roll-out 36 cloud kitchens over three years, targeting five cities with an investment of approximately Rs 25 crore.

LBF cloud kitchen

Focusing on the fast-growing food delivery market, Lite Bite Foods (LBF) is all set to leverage its expertise in managing well-established and trusted F&B brands, to create an entirely disruptive and large cloud kitchen model.

Each LBF cloud kitchen will operate its restaurant brands in the initial phase. The company is also launching three new brands to cater to the high demand for popular categories such as Biryani, Rolls and Parathas, and Meal in a Bowl

LBF to launch food app ‘FOOGO’

According to the press statement, LBF will soon be launching its food app under the name of ‘FOOGO’, which will allow customers to browse and order food from all the restaurants under the LBF umbrella. (More news on the app will be available once it gets closer to the launch). Patrons will also choose to place an order via platforms like Zomato, Swiggy, Scootsy, and others (as before).

To keep up with the high demand for ordering-in, the LBF cloud kitchen will expand with two operating models that are Hybrid kitchens, and QSR focused kitchens. Each Hybrid Kitchen set-up will host a mix of brands, both premium {Punjab Grill (North Indian), Tres (Modern European), YouMee (Japanese Asian Chinese), Zambar (South Indian),The Artful Baker, Biryani as well as mass market. While the QSR focused, kitchens will be an assortment of purely mass-market brands (Street foods by Punjab Grill (Pan Indian), Asia Seven Express (Chinese), Zambar Tiffins (South Indian), Rolls & Parathas, Meal in a Bowl).

First kitchen be live in August 2020 in Delhi

LBF aims to open one kitchen every month and plan to expand it to Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.

Commenting on the launch of the new segment Rohit Aggarwal, director Lite Bite Foods, said, “Lite Bite Foods is constantly seeking new avenues to grow and the new acquisitions and innovations further strengthen this vision. The online food delivery segment in India is set to grow at around 12% annually, with the current scenario giving it a boost.”

“We are investing approximately 25 crore in LBF cloud kitchens and are targeting at a turnover of 100 crore in the next three years. Ensuring sustainable growth and constant expansion, we plan to have all kitchens profitable at a unit level. We will be investing in state-of-the-art kitchen infrastructure, ensuring optimum utilization of space at minimum CAPEX. Our staff will be fully trained on the best kitchen operating systems for delivery-based business.”

The company also mentions in a press release that to maintain the standardization and consistency, the kitchens will operate on ‘hub and spoke’ model and embrace automation. The brands under LBF are known for their quality; keeping the same ethos intact, the kitchens will only use high-quality fresh ingredients, home-made dips and scratch recipe sauces to eliminate any preservatives. Tamperproof packaging has been specially designed, ensuring food delivery at the right temperature and highest food safety levels.