How Burger Singh became a ₹430 Crore giant? 🍔
How Burger Singh became a ₹430 Crore giant? 🍔
A desi QSR stealing market from McDonald’s
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Burger Singh is India's biggest desi burger chain with 175+ outlets in 75+ cities. A QSR startup that is valued at ₹430 Crores and is making more than ₹100 crores a year in revenue.
And while the company's scale seems small compared to McDonalds & Burger King which are operating at a 20X+ scale, it won’t be completely incorrect to say that the company is on its way to stealing some good market share from these giants.
Let’s find out how they’re doing this👇
But first, what does the QSR space look like?
India still has a huge runway when it comes to QSR growth. To give you an idea, the Indian QSR space is still under-penetrated with 3 stores per million population to China’s 13 stores per million population.
This sentiment is reflected in the valuations of multiple publicly listed companies, with most trading at Profits to earnings ratio of 100+.
While the industry is growing, it has become extremely competitive for any brand to survive in the long run. Thus, longevity in this business is a byproduct of the loyalty you have from customers. Let’s understand this deeply.
What did Burger Singh crack, really?
1. Product Uniqueness
When Kabir Singh started this burger chain in 2014, his philosophy was to “differentiate” and not “compete”. He knew that the only reason a customer would choose Burger Singh over McDonald’s would be the unique taste.
The Idea : Add a touch of Indian masala to the burgers. To provide a unique variety of fusion burgers. For this, he launched variants like “Chicken United States of Punjab” & “Amritsari Murgh Burger”.
While the emphasis initially was on quality, it later became about quantity too. They started variants that were 20% bigger than the usual at similar pricing.
2. Focussing on Tier 2-3 Cities
Burger Singh has used a top-down penetration strategy for Indian consumers. They did the opposite of what other brands were doing. While most mainstream QSR brands have major penetration in the top 7 cities, Burger Singh targets Tier 2 & 3 cities first.
65% of their stores are in Tier 2 & 3 cities. Tier 2 & 3 cities are catching up slowly to Tier 1 cities that are eating out roughly 2 times a week, which is still less compared to 3-5 times a week in China & the US.
But as the economy grows and disposable income increases, Tier 2 & 3 cities will also go out more. And, once a loyal fan base of Burger Singh is established there, capturing a big market there would become very easy- Masterstroke? Indeed.
3. Franchise Strategy
In a QSR business, the only way to scale is by having more franchises. That’s why Burger Singh only owns 30% of its stores. The rest 70% are franchises. But the magic is how the company filters out the right franchise partners.
The core principle → Give rights to people who have a certain level of professional corporate experience. Kabir wants the franchise owners to be really serious about running these outlets & not treat them as side-gigs. Because lower priority results in lower-quality adherence to SOPs and guidelines.
The idea is to work with people who’ll have some skin in the game. So if you already have a family business, you will most likely not get a Burger Singh franchise.
That’s all for today!
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Abhishek biggies burger a brand from odisha has a revenue of 120cr+ close call not sure which one is big though in terms of rank