Foodlink Global, the India-born restaurant and cloud kitchen major, has drawn up an ambitious expansion plan in the GCC market, which will see the chain foraying into the Saudi market, besides opening more outlets of its restaurants and cloud kitchens in the UAE.
The Dubai-regional headquartered food company, which operates restaurant and cloud kitchen brands China Bistro, India Bistro and Art of Dum, is also looking at taking the inorganic growth route by acquiring ventures in the food sector in order to support its aggressive growth plans.
“We opened eight outlets of our restaurant and cloud kitchen brands in UAE within a short period of 10 months last year. This year, we are going to add a few more outlets in UAE,” Sanjay Vazirani, chief executive officer of Foodlink Global Restaurants and Catering Services LLC, told Arabian Business.
“We also have plans to expand to Saudi Arabia and are working on the plans currently. We will make the formal announcement on this soon, once everything is in order,” Vazirani revealed.
“All three restaurant brands of the company have tremendous growth potential. So we are expanding in the existing geographies as well as in newer geographies,” he added.
Foodlink’s aggressive expansion plans in the UAE market comes at a time when the food and beverage (f&b) industry in the UAE has hit the high growth path post-pandemic.
The UAE f&b sector is predicted to see an estimated growth of 6.8 percent CAGR during 2022-2027, according to Mordor Intelligence.
Vazirani said the company will fund the expansions through a combination of private equity (PE) funds and internal accruals.
Foodlink Global has already had two rounds of PE funding from Oaks Asset Management and Plutus Wealth Management LLP.
“The second round [of funding] is being used to expand our flagship business of luxury catering across new geographies overseas and in India and to scale our casual dining restaurant business through our brands, India Bistro, China Bistro and Art of Dum within UAE and also in other GCC markets such as Saudi Arabia,” Vazirani said.
On the company’s inorganic growth plans, Vazirani said: “We are definitely open to acquiring companies that are of strategic importance for our expansion plans in the geographies of the UK, South East Asia as well as a few emerging markets in India like Hyderabad and Kolkata.
“A good opportunity can in a big way accelerate revenue growth. Pushing the services of the acquired companies through Foodlink’s global sales force, we can substantially accelerate the acquired companies’ revenues by more than 30-40 percent in the very first year after each acquisition,” he said.
Foodlink, which forayed into the UAE market a decade ago with wedding catering projects, currently operate in four verticals – fast-casual format restaurants, cloud kitchen, luxury outdoor catering and banquets and convention centres.
The company’s restaurants brands – China Bistro, India Bistro and Glocal Junction – currently runs outlets in Dubai, Sharjah, Hyderabad and Bangalore, while its cloud kitchens vertical Art of Dum operate in Dubai, besides in Indian cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.
Its luxury outdoor catering brand Foodlink Catering operate in Dubai, Turkey and Milan, besides few cities in India, while its banquets and convention centres, under the brand Jade, operate in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, in India.
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