A new white paper published by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has pegged India’s restaurant industry for significant growth over the next five years.
Announcing the paper’s release on Saturday Samir Kuckreja, NRAI president and managing director of restaurant chain Nirula’s, said India’s restaurant sector had a revenue of Rs430bn (US$9.48bn) and is expected to grow at 5-6 per cent a year, reported IANS.
The market share of ‘organised’ restaurants, currently at 16 per cent, is expected to hit 45 per cent by 2015, stated Mr Kuckreja.
“Many unorganised players are expected to become part of the organised industry in the coming years,” he said. “Proliferation of nuclear families, demographic changes, increasing per capita and changing food habits will drive more Indians to explore food in restaurants.”
That growth is likely to open up new opportunities for fresh produce supply to the Indian food service sector.
By 2030 India is expected to have 350m people living in urban areas, according to Vikram Bakshi, managing director of McDonald’s India and past president of the NRAI. He called on legislators to create an ‘enabling environment’ for restaurants.
“The market size and potential of restaurants are only expected to rapidly grow in the future,” he said. “We continue with a lack of infrastructure, including cold chains, power and water supply and other constraints.”
The white paper was developed for the NRAI by Technopak Advisors.
