Barcelos, a premier global QSR chain headquartered in South Africa, is extremely bullish about the Indian market and is on an expansion mode in the country. The quick service restaurant brand, popular for its Afro-Portugese delicacies like peri peri chicken, red burger, black burger and so on, is looking at 30 outlets across the country by 2020-2021 and a projected turnover of Rs 200 crore. At present, Barcelos has four outlets in the country. Its next port of call would be Hyderabad, which would be thrown open shortly, followed by Mumbai, which would come up over the next two months. The global QSR brand, at present, has more than 120 outlets in 20 countries in Africa, Singapore, Canada, the UK, Middle East and Asia, top officials said.The group has its offices in Centurion, South Africa and national distribution centres in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and in Gaborone, Botswana. It also has a service office in London.Barcelos has also lined up funds raising plans to back up its expansion in the country. If things move the way it has been envisaged, the QSR chain will raise the required funds by March, 2018, said Rohit Malhotra, business head India at Barcelos Flame Grilled Chicken. "While VC or PE funds would certainly be an option, the management is yet to take a definitive call on how to raise this fund," said Malhotra. The company would be shelling out nearly Rs 12-13 crore over the next three-four years for its expansion programme."India is a growing market and we feel it's the right time to expand and strengthen our position here. Our Hyderabad outlet is ready and will be inaugurated in two weeks time while the Mumbai one is scheduled for October. Next on cards are Chennai, Kochi, Bangalore and Pune. All outlets will be an amalgamation of company-owned as well as franchised outlets, much like the other restaurants," said Malhotra.The chain will launch its app in the third quarter of this year, enabling customers book tables, place orders, and make their own burgers, and add loyalty points. Moves are also afoot to start retailing sauces at restaurants and at food court operations by 2017. "Retail sauces initially will be available in restaurants. Eventually we will be launching on larger scale at all super markets etc while for food court we are targeting tier I and II cities only," said Malhotra.Interestingly, from a humble beginning with only a single operation founded in Pretoria, South Africa in 1993, Barcelos Flame Grilled Chicken is a market leading brand, specialising in the traditional way of serving healthy and spicy flame grilled chicken, prepared as authentically as it was mastered by the Portuguese chefs hundreds of years ago. The founders of the brand, namely Costa Mazzis, Johan van Eyk and Beverley Vaskys, all are still actively involved in the daily operations of the company ensuring continuity and excellence throughout the brand.Malhotra said that the Peri Peri chicken has caught up in India really very fast and he attributed this to the closeness of the cuisine to Indian palate and the addictive nature of the hot and tangy Peri Peri chilli, which have created such affinity."Other factors are also instrumental. Ours is a no-oil cuisine and the present generation being conscious of their health and hygiene can relate with us." The brand caters mostly to the age group of 14 to 40 years and learning from the customer behaviour, mindset and aspirations adopts and amends to grow intrinsically. "We also experiment a lot and in doing so have introduced Sangria bars and coloured food. Our Black Burger, Red Burger, White Burger, Sangria Bar serving 21 types of Sangrias and Boozy Shakes were an instant hit with the urban youth," said Malhotra.He said that Barcelos has a focused marketing strategy and uses social media extensively with a right dose of traditional advertising through hoardings and radio. "Campaign and promotions have to be innovative and concentrate on product rather on the medium," said Malhotra.ritwikmukherjee@mydigitalfc.com
