‘Bigger than McDonald’s & Starbucks’: Why an IITian is selling biryani

Vishal Jindal, the founder and Co-CEO of Biryani By Kilo wants to create a multinational food & beverages chain bigger than even McDonald’s, Starbucks, Chipotle or Nando’s! Jindal has done his engineering from IIT, has been an IT entrepreneur & founded a private equity fund as well.
In this week’s episode of TOI Business Bytes, Jindal tells us about why he chose to enter the business of selling biryani in India. He is of the view that in the food business the product has to be the hero.

Jindal also talks about the challenges in running a biryani business at a pan-India level. “There have been challenges – doing it (business) over 100 outlets in more than 40 cities. The systems and processes have to be set very carefully and they have to be very consistent,” he tells TOI.
“The same biryani you’ll get in Jalandhar or Guwahati or Goa or Mysore or Mumbai or Hyderabad or Bangalore or Delhi. So, the systems and processes have to be very robust,” he explains.
And, where does he see the food startup business headed in the next few years? “It will be very big. Today also the F&B category is $70 billion, which is almost a Rs 5 lakh crore industry in India. There are around 2.5 lakh restaurants listed on Zomato and Swiggy in the organized space,” he says.
“In India customers order food through various platforms around 4-5 times a month, in China this is 30-40 times and in Singapore it’s 80-90 times. It’s a very big business,” he added.
Watch the video above to know Jindal’s success mantras for food startups and his aim to make Biryani by Kilo a multi-country food brand.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Times of India Youtube channel for the weekly episode of TOI Business Bytes as we bring you opinions that matter on the most relevant topics.