Little Caesars Pizza has forayed into the Indian market with the launch of two outlets in Ahmedabad. The US-headquartered company aims to unveil more outlets in Gujarat and across the country in the coming months.
In Ahmedabad, the brand’s first outlet has been opened near the Iskcon crossroads, while another one is inaugurated near LD College.
Little Caesars Pizza claims to be the third largest pizza chain in the world. It is operating in 26 countries, works on a franchisee-based model.
Ashok Lal, Regional Managing Director, Little Caesars Pizza, said, “Both these outlets will offer only vegetarian pizza as the market research exercise suggested keeping only vegetarian varieties and dropping chicken or any other non-vegetarian variety from the menu. However, non-vegetarian pizza varieties may be introduced in the future as per customer demands.”
“We have started with these two outlets and we have plans to open stores in other cities of Gujarat and India in the coming months. Affordable price is our main USP,” he added.
The newly launched outlets are owned and operated by franchisee firm Phoenix Enterprise Nexus India Pvt Ltd, managed by Nandish Patel, who also owns several Little Caesars Pizza restaurants in the US.
Paula Vissing, Senior Vice President (International), Little Caesar Enterprises, Inc, stated, “We believe in delivering value for affordable pizza to the customers. Our pizza varieties are cheaper than other players offering pizza in the city. We have been expanding internationally over the last several years and we will open more such outlets in the months to come.”
Growing Pizza Market
The Italian food format stood third in preference after Indian and Chinese five to six years ago. However, recent studies show that pizza is the biggest and the most profitable segment in the Quick Serve Restaurant (QSR) format.
The Indian pizza market is dominated by Jubilant Food Works and Yum Brands, who own the widely recognisable brands Domino’s and Pizza Hut, respectively. However, other brands such as Sbarro, Papa John’s and Marco’s Pizza are also competing to spread their base in India. Thus, with the increase in the number of players, the market is ripe for investors.
Serving pizza via franchise route
Global and domestic pizza brands in India are expanding their stores through the franchise route throwing many opportunities for entrepreneurs in the country. Be it Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Sbarro, Neopolitan Pizza or any other pizza brand, the majority of them are spreading their footprints via a franchise model in India. Domino’s Pizza has Jubilant FoodWorks Limited as it Master Franchisee.
Prospects in smaller cities
The Indian fast food market, which used to concentrate only in the metropolitan cities, has been witnessing a robust growth pan-India over the past few years. Tier-II and III cities are the focus of the leading pizza makers due to huge opportunities there.
In the pizza segment, competition is getting intense as franchisors are significantly ramping up their presence across tier-II and tier-III cities of India. There exists a tremendous growth opportunity for franchisors in these areas as an educated middle-class population is becoming more sophisticated with respect to standardised food consumption.
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