New Delhi, May 9: Baba Ramdev, founder and promoter of the home-grown FMCG company, Patanjali Ayurveda, is moving ever farther from his core competency: yoga. He is setting up a restaurant chain.
He said he would be positioning his restaurant chain in the fast food space. The menu would consist of 400 traditional vegetarian recipes.
Baba Ramdev's Patanjali group which specializes in herbal juice and medicines last year registered a revenue of Rs 10,000 crore. That's the kind of growth in ten years that an IT company in the Silicon Valley would envy. Ramdev's next foray is likely to take on multinational food chains like KFC, MacDonald's and Subway.
Across a resurgent Hindu India, with cattle getting holier and vegetarianism almost taking on a patriotic dimension, the new chain of restaurants that Ramdev is proposing just might become yet another money spinner.
Recently at a public meeting Ramdev said half in jest and half in earnest: "We will give customers a lot to choose from. There is nothing tastier and healthier than vegetarian Indian food. When we get these recipes together, all these multinationals restaurants serving chicken or mutton will have a hard time countering us."
As it is, nearly 60-70 percent of all fast food items like pizzas and burgers sold in India are vegetarian even in the multi-national chain of restaurants, Acharya Balkrishna, CEO, and Ramdev's partner, said.
Ramdev did not fail to put in a nationalistic angle to his project. He said McDonald's, KFC and Subway were like the East India Company. "They are here to loot. We will free India from food colonialism." He said he would "drive the foreign food chains way from Indian shores in five years." Clearly, food has become fodder for a kind of Independence movement.
In the process, Ramdev said, his people would establish direct contact with the farmers for fresh produce."In the next five years, Patanjali would educate the farmers about the latest techniques in farming to boost production. We will also offer decent prices for the produce." He said his food chain will benefit both farmers and customers.
Baba Ramdev took yoga to the masses, and turned his popularity into a brand that people have come to trust. His businesses have made life tough for established giants like Nestle, Unilever and Colgate.
The Haridwar-based FMCG firm has registered a turnover of Rs 10,561 crore in 2016-17, and Ramdev wants to double that in the coming year.
The company is in the process of setting up mega production units at several places, including Noida, Nagpur, and Indore, which would take its production capacity to Rs 60,000 crore, from the existing Rs 35,000 crore.
The firm is also planning a push for exports after its food park in Nagpur is commissioned.
For Ramdev, the restaurant business can be another way to get more customers for Patanjali products. For brand awareness, he uses Aastha, a spiritual channel, to promote the products along with his yoga lessons.
Market watchers are skeptical on Patanjali's foray into the restaurant business. "Serving a packaged product is one business and running a services business is another," said a business analyst. But Ramdev has been adept at turning predictions wrong.
Meanwhile, a restaurant in Chandigarh, Postik, has been using Patanjali products to make vegetarian and satvik snacks. The walls of the restaurant are lined with pictures of Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna. The restaurant carries the logo of Patanjali on its menu which also lists health tips for its customers as a take-home message. Reportedly Postik owners were the ones who approached Ramdev with the proposal of a food chain.
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