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Anonymous

Former VP Corporate Planning at Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands: Scaling Pizza Hut in China

Former CEO at Domino's Pizza Group

Domino's Pizza Group: Master Franchising

Former Domino's Pizza Franchisee

Domino's Pizza Enterprises: Running a Domino's Store

Domino's Pizza: US vs UK Franchising

{audio:0:00:01} Merrill, can you provide a short introduction to your background in the pizza industry?

{audio:0:00:12} I’ve been in the quick service restaurant space for close to 32 years. I started my career in 1987, working from the bottom, on the front counter at McDonald’s, in Melbourne, Australia. I worked my way up to being the regional head for Asia. I started my career in 1987 and I was with McDonald’s for 23 years. In 23 years, I spent time with McDonald’s in more than 18 geographies, from Australia, to the South Pacific. I also opened the Middle East for the McDonald’s company and, as I mentioned earlier, I was the regional head for Asia.

{audio:0:01:00} In 2010, I decided to part with McDonald’s. I took a year off and, in that year, I went and studied at Wharton and did my Advanced Management Program. At the same time, I wrote a book called Expand Your Brand, which is about what I did at McDonald’s for 23 years, going into new countries and developing the brand.

{audio:0:01:33} Following that, I was then the CEO of Domino’s, in Indonesia. I was there for three years and I was part of a team that was responsible for the turnaround of Domino’s in Indonesia. In 2016, I was approached by the largest franchisor of Yum! Brands, which was KFC and Pizza Hut, to move to Malaysia and run their company, as the managing director. The QSR company in Malaysia owns the rights to Pizza Hut and KFC in four countries, being Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Cambodia. The total number of restaurants was 1,400. I ran that business for three years and then Yum! approached me and asked me to join them in taking over the Pizza Hut business in the Indian subcontinent.

{audio:0:02:32} Currently, I manage four countries, which are India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives. I manage these countries and the total number of restaurants in this space is about 550. In the next three years, we intend to double the numbers in the region. In a nutshell, that’s my experience with fast food or quick service restaurants. Since 2013, I’ve been working with the two leading brands for pizza.

{audio:0:03:10} How does the consumer perception of pizza in India compare to other countries in South East Asia?

{audio:0:03:22} The benefit of the pizza business in India is that Pizza Hut has been in India for close to 20 years. For the last 13 years of that, it has been given the award as one of the most trusted brands in the quick service restaurant business, in India. Also, in terms of the competition for pizzas in India, we are the number two player. The number one player is Domino’s and they have nearly three times the number of restaurants that we have there. The biggest plus point for that is that there are plenty of opportunities for us to grow but also, in India, the idea of pizza is very common. It is not like in other parts of Asia where you have to explain to them what a pizza is all about. In India, it’s a very common word. In fact, in lockdown, there was a survey that asked people, in India, what would be the first thing you will do when lockdown is over. The number one answer was, we want to have pizza and biryani, which is an Indian rice and protein mixed dish.

{audio:0:04:57} The good thing about this is that the pizza business, the pizza name, in India, is well-known and it’s well accepted by the people all over the country. If you went into another geography, such as Vietnam or another part of Asia, you’ve got to spend a lot of time on educating the consumer on what a pizza actually is.

{audio:0:05:33} Do the Indian consumers not have a similar aversion to dairy products like the Chinese consumer would?

{audio:0:05:43} The consumers vary. In some countries around the world, pizza is looked upon as a very up-market product, so it’s an affluent thing; middle class, higher middle class and above, would be used to pizza. If you went into second and third tier cities in Asia, people would still not understand that concept of what a pizza is all about. The blessing of pizza in India is that it has been around for a long, long time.

{audio:0:06:15} How has the penetration of pizza, as a category, within the organized food sector in India, grown over time?

{audio:0:06:27} In India, you have two types of sector. One is the organized food sector, which is where you have global brands. Then you have the unorganized food sector, which is all the small, local players in the country. In India, that split is 70:30; 30 is the organized players and 70 is the unorganized players. When you look at this whole thing, you can just see the potential of growth for organized players, branded players, in the future of Pizza Hut and the other brand players, in India.

{audio:0:07:10} You have also got a huge number of people that are moving into the next level or the next class, so you would go from lower middle class to middle class. That number is close to the population of the United States, which is about 300 million people. They are already moving to the next segment so these people are now becoming more affluent, they like to spend time with aspirational brands. All the global players there are now becoming aspirational and something for the consumers in India.

{audio:0:07:48} What is the rough penetration or market share of pizza, as a category, within that 30% of organized food?

{audio:0:07:57} The penetration wouldn’t be that high. To give you a rough idea of numbers, first of all, the pizza business has the highest penetration of all quick service restaurant players, whether it is burger or chicken or whatever. In the pizza category, there are close to 2,500 organized players, between the two big brands and also a couple of smaller brands that have got 100 or 200 stores. The pizza category, in India, would be the most penetrated of that 30%. But there is a huge opportunity for penetration as you have to remember, in India, you are looking at 1.3 to 1.4 billion people. You’ve got nearly 350 million people who are in that middle-class category. If you just take the 350 million people who can afford to buy pizza and you compare that to the US, the US, in pizza chains, would just have a huge amount of stores, compared to what we have in India, which is 2,500 stores.

{audio:0:09:03} Do you think the price point or the image of pizza being an affluent or aspirational dish is going to remain? You are going to have this huge influx of demographics that are going to move up to the middle class, so you don’t actually need to lower the price to increase the market size.

{audio:0:09:25} As part of our strategy and part of the strategies of most of the organized players, you always have entry-level value. Entry-level value enables somebody – who can’t afford to spend the same kind of money as somebody in the middle-class band would do – the ability to try it out. They try it out, at entry level and then, as they get used to it and their lifestyle or earning power increases, they can then move from entry level into the next tier.

{audio:0:10:09} In QSR, in most countries around the world, especially in India, you have a tiered menu. You have an entry level and you have a level where it’s a meal for one; then you have another value meal which may be a meal for two; then you have a value meal for a meal for four. You will have these value meals that give people the choice to be able to trial something different. Of course, you have got the high end where you have people who have got money and wouldn’t mine spending three or four times what this person would spend on getting a large family meal deal.

{audio:0:10:48} How are the consumer preferences or market structure different in the tier one cities, versus tier two and three?

{audio:0:11:00} In India, the majority of our restaurants are in tier one. I would say, even with the competition, it’s tier one and tier two. I don’t think anyone has gone into the tier three cities. When you have got so much opportunity in tier one and tier two, you don’t want to spend all your time going to tier three, because then you’ve got the challenges of logistics and training and operations and all that stuff. You have to manage something that is far away and you haven’t got any other restaurants in that area. If you look at what is happening in China, you have got most of the global players that are in tier one, tier two. Now, they are slowly getting to tier three. But the main focus has always been, fill up all your opportunities in tier one, then move to tier two before you go onto tier three.

{audio:0:11:57} You expect to double the 550 restaurants in only tier one cities?

{audio:0:12:04} No; we will go into tier one and tier two. There are already a number of restaurants in tier two cities, but we will basically focus our efforts on tier one and tier two. There are so many opportunities in tier one and tier two, before we go to tier three.

{audio:0:12:21} Is the mix between delivery or dine-in or carry out different in tier one and two?

{audio:0:12:31} Yes, significantly. What we have seen, pre-Covid, is that dine-in takes a huge percentage of our business; more than 50% of our business comes from dine-in. Then you have 35% that comes from delivery and 15% comes from takeaway. But now, with Covid, and with all the lockdowns happening, there has been a shift from dine-in and it’s moved more towards delivery and takeaway. The split would be, I would say, 30% to 35% is dine-in, delivery is more than 50% and the rest would be takeaway. You see that in tier one. In tier two, of course, you would see a higher percentage of dine-in and that is simply because, in tier two, it becomes an event. On the weekend, I’m going to visit this global brand, sit out there and have my meal. In most parts of the world, in tier two cities, dine-ins always do very well because it becomes a hotspot for you on a Friday or Saturday night.

{audio:0:13:49} Has that changed, post-Covid, in the tier two cities?

{audio:0:13:53} Yes. Post-Covid, the dine-in business has been impacted but there has been a shift towards delivery and takeaway.

{audio:0:14:11} How do you look at that long-run mix between delivery, dine-in and carry out, in tier one and tier two, let’s say, five to seven years out?

{audio:0:14:24} I think what has happened is that Covid has really changed the way that consumers dine and get their meals. What Covid has done is that people who were never used to getting deliveries, were forced to go and get deliveries. There is a change in habit that I can see will stay for the next couple of years, as well. If you look at it in Asia, and a country like India – and it’s all my numbers that I am looking at right now – we still think that 2021 is going to be a tough year with Covid cases still coming in, lockdowns happening, second and third waves coming in. Then we will see recovery in 2022. We will still go through a similar pattern in 2021 and, in 2022, we will see some sort of recovery in dine-in.

{audio:0:15:24} I think, in Asia, the dine-in business will come back but it will take some time. It is not going to happen straightaway, but I can see, in 2022, 2023, is when the dine-in business will start to come back in, as the vaccine comes in, herd immunity kicks in and people will feel more comfortable coming out. Again, in Asia, most of our dine-in restaurants are in malls. The malls become a great family occasion for people to visit on weekends and the evenings. I can see all that happening, but it won’t happen for another 12 to 15 months.

{audio:0:16:05} How does the restaurant footprint split between malls or market corners?

{audio:0:16:14} One of the things we had to basically do, straightaway, is look at how we build our stores, moving forward. For the next couple of years, I would say we are building stores with less seating and more attuned towards delivery and takeaway. Come 2022, we will go back to looking at stores where we can put in a dining room. Right now, we have dining rooms in the stores that we are building, but they are not large dining rooms; they are between 10 to 30 seats. But as we come out of this pandemic, we will go back to looking at dine-in options.

{audio:0:17:04} Can you just step back and provide a bit of context to Pizza Hut’s presence in India, over the last decade, and how it has evolved?

{audio:0:17:16} Pizza Hut has been in India for close to 20 years. Ove the last 10 years, we have had some serious competition from the number one player in India, being Domino’s. We have seen a shift in our market share; they have 1,500 restaurants and we have 550 restaurants, so they are three times bigger than us. But one of the things that we have managed to do, in the last few years, is come up with an accelerated plan whereby we intend to double our numbers in the next three years. That’s what we’ve had to do.

{audio:0:17:56} There are many countries around the world where Pizza Hut is number one and Domino’s is number two. If you look at China, KFC and Pizza Hut are number one and Domino’s is number two. For many years, in Malaysia, Pizza Hut was number one and Domino’s was number two. The same thing in Singapore. In Australia, right now, Domino’s is number one and Pizza Hut is number two. We have got a strong plan in place to accelerate our growth and look at different opportunities.

{audio:0:18:33} For us, in the last 10 years, it has been a lot of consolidation and also, with what’s happened with Covid, we will migrate a lot of dine-ins for a couple of years before we come back into it again.

{audio:0:18:48} What is the structure of a typical Pizza Hut format?

{audio:0:18:55} The typical format would be that you will see a restaurant that has got maybe 20 to 30 seats and it allows you to do dine-in, takeaway and it also allows you to do delivery. One of the things that goes into this mix of delivery and takeaway is that we also have to fast track or bring forward our digital strategies. In every company, you have a digital strategy and a road map that goes on for two to three years. What has happened with Covid is that everything is going digital at a faster rate, so those three-year plans that we have had, we have had to consolidate into a one-year plan.

{audio:0:19:44} Everything that we are doing right now, is accelerating those plans to make it more and more easy and relevant for our consumers, when they come to Pizza Hut.

{audio:0:19:58} Are these restaurants 100% owned by franchisees, in India?

{audio:0:20:04} Yes. Our business, in India, is a franchise business and we’ve got two partners in India.

{audio:0:20:16} So roughly, they own half of the 550 stores each?

{audio:0:20:19} Yes, correct; there is a split. There is a 60:40 split and they, basically, own them.

{audio:0:20:29} How much does it cost to open a franchise, a unit, a typical restaurant, in India, for Pizza Hut?

{audio:0:20:35} It varies on what you are going to pay for rent, what the labor cost is going to be. In India, it can go from US$150,000 to US$250,000. That’s the range. A large restaurant would be between US$220,000 and US$250,000, compared to a smaller restaurant that will be about US$125,000 to US$145,000.

{audio:0:21:09} Does the payback differ in tier one and tier two cities, for franchisees?

{audio:0:21:16} Yes. Payback is all about your top line sales. There could be a difference in sales between a tier one and tier two so that is, basically, what makes the big difference in the payback.

{audio:0:21:33} That has obviously evolved, as well, as Domino’s has entered the market, over the last decade or so, to put more pressure on?

{audio:0:21:39} Yes, that’s true. If you look at Domino’s, it is a listed company and if you look at their paybacks, they are anything from two to four years. Most QSR players would be in that range of between three to five, I would say. McDonald’s will be a bit higher but the other players will be between three to five.

{audio:0:22:03} Are the sub-licensing agreements similar to other countries that you have worked in?

{audio:0:22:11} One of the things about working with a global brand is that you’ve got franchise agreements or sub-franchise agreements with partners that are very similar. Of course, we have to take into account local legal rules which we abide by. Some of these legal rules dictate elements of how the partnership should be. Basically, we have similar franchise agreements with our countries all over the world.

{audio:0:22:46} How do you compare managing a more concentrated franchisee base like today, in India, where you have two partners, versus a Domino’s, where it seems to be more fragmented and more independent owners?

{audio:0:23:04} When you have two major players, they have got their own infrastructure, their own leadership teams and you act as their advisor to their leadership teams. They’ve each got about 250 restaurants and they’ve got their own HR teams, operations teams, marketing teams and so on. In the case of Australia, where you would have a franchisee that has anywhere from two to six, 10 stores, they are smaller franchises and, basically, what they have themselves is maybe their own finance team and they have their own operations team. But they don’t have the other expertise, when it comes to marketing support, supply chain, strategic departments.

{audio:0:23:59} That is where it is different because in the big franchisees, they have got the set up within their companies and, for the smaller guys, they rely on the franchisor to provide all that support. Having five stores doesn’t give you the kind of savings in the supply chain, if you have to go and buy your cheese for five stores, for example. But as a franchisor, when we go and negotiate to buy cheese, you get a better price in negotiating for 500 stores or 1,000 stores. That’s where the smaller guys have to depend on the franchisor to do all those negotiations. While for the big franchisee, they will work in collaboration with the franchisor and they will also work by themselves, to make sure that they can get the best deal.

{audio:0:24:53} But also the franchisor, potentially, has to negotiate harder with the franchisees because they have somewhat more power than more fragmented base?

{audio:0:25:04} How do you manage that tension where you are more of a partner to the two franchisees, versus more of franchisor or boss of the more independent, fragmented base of franchisees?

{audio:0:25:21} It’s a very different relationship. When you are managing a massive franchisee, who has got 250, 300, 500 stores, you are very much out there as a consultant to advise them. There is a different way of handling them because they have already got this company; it is well set up, they’ve got a large leadership team and everything else. It’s a very different way of handling them, compared to a guy who has got one or two pizza stores and you’ve got to go there. When you go there, a lot of the focus is advising him on getting his operations right. Everything above operations is run by the brand. He just has to execute. Your interaction with that person would be all about making sure that the store runs well, the store is profitable, that they are running a good P&L and everything else. All the other things would be run by the brand.

{audio:0:26:30} Do you think Pizza Hut, in India, has any advantage due to their consolidated franchisee network?

{audio:0:26:41} Huge advantages. If I use the example of when they are doing their new stores and looking at their rent, I can assure you that if the global brand had to go in there and negotiate a rent deal with a local landlord, they wouldn’t get as good a deal as the local guy would get. Local knowledge is important, so wherever we are in the world, we like to tie up the local partner, because the local partner has local expertise, local knowledge and is able to do a better job on negotiating deals with local people.

{audio:0:27:18} They are good at dealing with the local people, dealing with the government. But the brand comes into play in other areas. Let’s assume you need to buy cheese, for example, and there are a couple of global players that sell cheese. One is Fonterra, in New Zealand and the other one is Leprino, based in the US. These players are supplying to 100 countries of Pizza Hut, around the world. We can go and negotiate with them for a special price for the country that we are operating in.

{audio:0:27:18} Don’t Domino’s do that, as well, for their franchisees?

{audio:0:27:56} They do the same; all of them do the same. They have got global suppliers that, basically, give you a global price. If I go back to my McDonald’s days, the global supplier for their beverages, is Coke. The price that Coke sells the syrup to McDonald’s is the lowest price in the world, and that’s because, firstly, it has been a long-term partnership and, secondly, they’ve got access to 35,000, 40,000 restaurants, worldwide. The syrup is the best price in the beverage world.

{audio:0:28:42} How would you compare or describe Pizza Hut’s position in India, versus Domino’s and the other pizza players?

{audio:0:29:01} In India, we are the number two player, in the pizza business. I would say, in the dine-in restaurant business, we would be the number one player, because Domino’s works on a delivery model and we have dine-ins. In the dine-in business, it would be fair to say that Pizza Hut would be the number one dine-in restaurant in India. But when you look at it from a pizza business point of view and delivery business point of view, of course, the other guys are number one.

{audio:0:29:31} How do they compare on price, in India?

{audio:0:29:36} Pricing is very similar, because it’s a very competitive market. In a place like India, value is everything. Our pricing will be very, very competitive.

{audio:0:29:48} So it’s somewhat similar to Domino’s? If I’m dining in or if I’m taking away from Pizza Hut, versus Domino’s, it is a somewhat similar price?

{audio:0:29:55} Yes; it’s very similar. Each of them would have their own value meals, the special deals; the special deals during the day, or deals where if you come in on a Wednesday night, you could get a special deal from Domino’s; if you went in on a Thursday night, you could get a special deal from Pizza Hut. Customers are getting really smart at shopping around, looking out for the best deals and everything else.

{audio:0:30:28} How do you look at the way that Pizza Hut has defined pizza as a dine-in brand or an experience it seems, in Asia, both in China and in South East Asia and India? If that is evolving, what challenges do you see in evolving with that brand and making it more of a takeout and delivery experience, rather than just dine-in?

{audio:0:30:59} Pre-Covid, we had already said that it will always be a player that will share space between dine-in, takeaway and delivery. With Covid, what has happened is that dine-ins have been a challenge, worldwide. The benefit of having a brand like Pizza Hut is that Pizza Hut has always had a delivery and a takeaway business. All we had to do was shift the dine-in customers into making our business more relevant and easier for them to order their food through digital channels.

{audio:0:32:02} Can you explain a bit about how you saw the biggest challenges in shifting from dine-in to delivery?

{audio:0:32:18} When you have a business that has more than 50% of its sales coming in from dine-in and, all of a sudden, overnight, your dine-in is closed, you’ve got to make a pretty big shift and move them, straightaway, into delivery and takeaway. As I said earlier, we had to lift our game on our digital channels, to make sure that customers found it easier to order through the digital channels. We had to work on a plan that got people to move. I will be honest and say, right now, it hasn’t moved 100%. In India, people are still coming over from dine-in, but we have been able to do a decent shift, rapidly, to move people from dine-in into delivery and takeaway.

{audio:0:33:10} Is the biggest challenge communicating to the user or the diner that you are now offering delivery or is more just the formats?

{audio:0:33:20} The format stayed the same; the dine-ins were closed, so we didn’t change formats, because we couldn’t build anything that fast. But what we had to do was to communicate with people about the other channels that we have. We were lucky because consumers had no choice. It was not that they wanted to go to a dine-in restaurant and they decided to go to delivery or takeaway. With the lockdown, you had no choice because the dine-ins are closed.

{audio:0:33:47} We increased our advertising spend on our digital channels and also did special deals with the aggregators. As you know, in India, there are two major aggregator players, which are Swiggy and Zomato. We had to move advertising spend onto them, to increase events and get people used to ordering deliveries and getting takeaways.

{audio:0:34:14} Is your delivery business mainly via aggregators or is it your own delivery network?

{audio:0:34:20} We have both channels. From our delivery business, I would say 70% is aggregators and the rest would be our own riders.

{audio:0:34:39} What is the biggest challenge in moving that to have a direct delivery channel?

{audio:0:34:47} Consumer habits. Getting consumers to move from saying, I don’t like ordering delivery and I don’t want to get takeaway; I want to come into your restaurant and eat. Getting that mind shift, for people to move from there to there, from dine-in to takeaway. But for us, the blessing for all of this was Covid. Covid forced you to start looking at other options, other than dine-in. What Covid did to us was say, you don’t have a choice; the dine-ins are closed. The only way you can get a pizza is going to be through delivery or takeaway.

{audio:0:35:23} How do you think the aggregators have changed the competitive landscape for delivery?

{audio:0:35:33} Worldwide, as you know, aggregators have come in and they have got huge budgets and they’re here to stay. It isn’t cheap to go with an aggregator. When you look at all the fees you have to pay the aggregators, at the end of the day, there is very little left of the bottom line. But the aggregators are here to stay. They have got huge investment and they are growing rapidly. In a place like India, you’ve got these two players that have grown tremendously over the last five years.

{audio:0:36:16} They are growing rapidly and, I would say to anybody if they are in this space, you need to go with the aggregators. What you have to do is just be smart about it. The way you are smart about going into business with an aggregator is, because you know they are going to charge you 20% to 25% of your ticket, you need to come up with special meals, special deals, where the aggregators get it and then special deals that you only offer through your own channels.

{audio:0:36:42} For example, when we launch a new pizza, maybe for the first couple of weeks, we will only launch it through our own channels. So if you want that pizza, you’ve got to come via our own channels. But after a couple of weeks, then we will let it go to the aggregator. You’ve got to try and balance it out because you know, while the aggregators are quite expensive, you still need to be doing business with them.

{audio:0:37:06} Because they own the consumer?

{audio:0:37:09} That’s it, yes. Also, if you look at the aggregators, in India, consumers don’t want to download a dozen apps. You’ve got one app that does everything. You can get from pizza to Indian food to Italian food to whatever you want; it’s all in one app.

{audio:0:37:30} What’s your view, more conceptually, on the end game here? I guess there is a question as to whether the consumer, as you just said, only has Uber Eats or Swiggy or the aggregator apps, or can you, as a brand, whether it’s Pizza Hut, Domino’s, McDonald’s or Burger King, actually have your own app on the home screen of someone’s phone? How do you view that mix between having a perfect delivery business, being on the home screen, versus going through aggregators?

{audio:0:38:08} Most of the global players have got their own app and their own website that you can order from. We always find it’s much better to get them coming in through app and your website, because then they are your customers. With the aggregators, they always own the data. For the consumer coming through your app and your channels, you’ve got their data and then that will help you with your CRM plans, moving forward.

{audio:0:38:38} There is a huge benefit but, at the same time, you’ve got this other player out there, that is growing rapidly and has got huge funding. They are able to come up with specials and better deals and all that stuff. You have to keep them there; you have to go with them too. There is a very fine balance between what the aggregators do for you and what you should try and do with your own channels. The more you do with your own channels, the more profitable it is.

{audio:0:39:07} How has the pricing evolved, on aggregators, between the delivery charge and the fee?

{audio:0:39:13} If you look at it worldwide, some of the global players have gone and done global deals with the aggregators. McDonald’s did a global deal with Uber Eats, when they were launched. Yum! Brands have got global deals with all of these aggregators. The range is between 20% and 25% of your average ticket, so it’s not cheap. But you have to go in with them.

{audio:0:39:39} Does this make the payback much longer for franchisees, because you have to pay this fee for your higher delivery mix?

{audio:0:39:51} It does impact your bottom line. But if you are smart about it, then you make sure that the offers that the aggregators have will never be as good as the offers that you have from your own channels. If I’m an aggregator and I’m offering you a 30% discount on a pizza, maybe on my channel, I will offer you a 40% discount. You try and keep it competitive and you try and shift as many people as you can to your own channels.

{audio:0:40:24} Then you have to have a delivery network to deliver at speed?

{audio:0:40:28} Correct. So we have our own SOPs of how we deliver and what our time should be and everything else. The good thing about the pizza business is that most pizza players have their own delivery riders anyway.

{audio:0:40:42} Is pizza and pizza delivery as well-known as a category for delivery as it is in the US? For example, in the US, Domino’s is a well-regarded brand and their own customers go direct to them for delivery and they have an established infrastructure, to deliver very quickly. Is that the case in India? Or, because it is a different type of consumer experience, it is less suited to direct delivery?

{audio:0:41:11} No. In India it is very similar to the rest of the world. Pizza and delivery are very much hand in hand. Consumers are quite used to not coming in to dine; they’re quite used to getting a pizza delivered to them.

{audio:0:41:36} You mentioned this point around different meals on aggregators and your own channels. How do you look at the future of cloud kitchens or the next stage of the evolution of QSR?

{audio:0:41:52} The big thing, right now, I would say, and for the last couple of years, has been cloud kitchens. This is going rapidly. In a place like India, it’s growing even faster. Cloud kitchens are another blue ocean, as you would call it, for fast food players.

{audio:0:42:20} What happens is, in a place like India, real estate is a premium price and you know that if you want to go into a certain area, going onto a street front, a major corner, it’s going to cost you an arm and leg. But you know, because of the business you are in, which is delivery, you can afford to go three or four blocks away from that key corner, on the second or third floor of a building and set up your kitchen there, where the rent will be maybe 70% cheaper than what it would be if you were on the main street. So you can go up there, set up your own kitchen. I’m not worried about which street corner it’s on, because I’m going to get it delivered to me.

Managing Director Pizza Hut India & Former CEO Domino's, Indonesia 

Pizza Hut & The Indian Pizza Market

Structure of the Indian QSR market and split between the organized and unorganized food market