The Hindu Business Line : Wadhawan family to enter supermarket, F&B segments

THE Wadhawan family, whose diversified business interests include DHFL, among the largest housing finance companies in the country, is all set to foray into the supermarket and food and beverage retailing business.

Over the next three months, the family will launch Spinach, a supermarket chain that will compete with the neighbourhood kirana to cater to households, and also set up a chain of fine dining restaurants across key markets.

Plans are afoot to enter the lucrative in-flight catering business for which the company is setting up a centralised kitchen with capacities of 10,000 meals, Mr Gaurav Modwel, Corporate Planning and Strategy, told Business Line when contacted.

The family's supermarket venture will be through Wadhawan Food Retail, which is planning to set up at least 1,000-1,500 large, medium and small format supermarkets across residential clusters in cities, over the next 8-9 years, beginning with Mumbai and Western India, the CEO, Mr Dippankar Halder, said.

While the large and small format stores will possibly be along the lines of Piramyd Retail's Tru Mart chain, the smaller ones will be designed along the lines of the 7/11 stores that are to be found across the US.

These company-owned super markets will initially be rolled out in Mumbai with the merchandise customised based on the composition of the residents of various localities. Mr Halder said each of the stores would cost 50 lakh to 1.25 crore depending on the size. "We will have a 100 stores in 2-3 years," he added.

The family's foray into the food and beverages business will be through Bigeasy, a Mumbai-based company in the restaurant business, in which it acquired controlling interest recently. Plans are now finalised to launch `Aurus,' a fine dining, multi-cuisine restaurant chain, the first of which will be launched in Mumbai's Chowpattty area in February. The company will set up a centralised kitchen for in-flight catering and later tap the ready meals business for corporates, Mr Modwel said.

"Aurus will have one more outlet in Mumbai and then go to Delhi and we plan to have at least five restaurants in place in the next 3-4 years," he said. The centralised kitchen will also be the back-end for the food and bakery requirements of the Spinach chain. The group's housing finance company, DHFL, had earlier entered the venture capital funds market and is believed to be foraying into related segments of its core housing business.