Foodlink F&B Holdings eyes Rs 1k cr revenues

Foodlink F&B Holdings India Pvt Ltd, India’s largest luxury catering enterprise, has set a target to achieve revenue of Rs 800-1,000 crore in the next 3-4 years. It is looking to surpass revenue of Rs 450 crore in this financial year. The two-decade-old F&B service enterprise has presence in five major cities of India and three cities abroad. It has announced its foray into Hyderabad on Tuesday.

Founded in 2003 from Mumbai, Foodlink has gradually expanded its footprint to Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Delhi and now Hyderabad in India and Antalya (Turkey), Dubai (UAE), and Milan (Italy), internationally, from where it has executed premium catering projects in over 25 countries across Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa. It has established a global domination in the luxury catering segment.

“Foodlink has aggressive plans to expand in South India starting with Hyderabad as the first city where it is setting up a full-fledged back-end infrastructure and production facility to strengthen its presence in the market. This will be an important part of our growth story as we gear up for an IPO in next couple of years,” Sanjay Vazirani, CEO of Foodlink F&B Holdings India Pvt Ltd told Bizz Buzz.

“The company is planning to increase the number of restaurants to 100 across India in coming three years from 35 at present. We are planning to invest Rs 400-500 crore on our expansion plans across India over the next 2-3 years. Though we are backed by private equity investors, most of these funds will be from the internal accruals only. We may go for pre-IPO funding by mid-next year,” he added.

Foodlink is a multifaceted hospitality company that oversees restaurants, cloud kitchens, indoor banquets, and ultra-luxury catering. It owns and operates over 35 restaurants and cloud kitchen outlets across the brands India Bistro, China Bistro, Glocal Junction and ‘Art of Dum’ which are leaders of the North Indian, Pan-Asian, world fusion cuisine and Awadhi Dum Pukht cuisine respectively across India & UAE.

The company has a team of 1,500 employees across the country, while 40 per cent of them are chefs. The CEO calls all his employees as partners and offers them ESOPs (Employee stock ownership plan). He is well-recognised to have changed the hospitality industry over the past 20 years by building top-notch infrastructure and innovative approaches to draw in unheard-of levels of growth.

“Today, professional catering is a growing industry in India with an estimated current size of Rs 20,000 crore demonstrating an estimated annual growth of around 25 to 30 per cent. Catering has become a crucial factor for the success of any event like a social gathering, corporate event or wedding. There are around one crore weddings that happen every year in India,” he informed.