There are many stories of people who end up in a different sector, in spite of being trained in another. And a lot of them have emerged successful in finding their true calling. However, Farman Beig and Rajat Jaiswal’s story will leave you spellbound. Having established 60 outlets in just 5 years, of their homegrown burger chain Wat-A-Burger, this pilot and IT professional turned businessmen, are on their way to achieving a century of outlets by year end.
Humble Beginnings
Initially, the brand had to hustle quite a bit. To tackle competition from global and local food giants like McDonalds, The Burger Club and Burger Singh, they set up their first store opposite McDonalds, from where they were sure to get walk-in customers, to try samples of their burgers on toothpicks. If customers liked it, they could order a burger and if they didn’t like it on having the whole burger, money would be refunded. This continued for two months and there wasn’t a single complaint. They had pitched in Rs 10 lakhs to start the first outlet.
Climbing up the ladder
After their first outlet in sector 18 in Noida, a second one was established in Sector 76. Then another one in Gurugram followed. The company started opening multiple outlets in different cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Vadodara, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ranchi, Jhansi and Srinagar too. Up till now, the duo has invested 3.6 crore.
An important reason that has helped the company scale new heights, is its product authenticity and quality. Their recipes are as per the Indian preferences and there is a lot of importance is given originality of the recipe. They have a very systematic mechanism to ensure product standardization, and local vendors who supply high quality ingredients are contracted.
The burgers are priced in the range of Rs40/- to Rs 200/-. With 24 stock keeping units, Wat-A-Burger serves more than 80,000 customers on a daily basis with mouth-watering vegetarian and non-vegetarian burgers, shakes and sandwiches.
The Road Ahead
According to a report by Mordor Intelligence, India’s food service market is forecasted to reach $95.75 billion by 2025 and the quick service format contributes to a sizeable share. The company aims to serve more than 1 lakh orders a day. and are eyeing aggressive expansion in Maharashtra and South India too. Eyeing the youth as potential target, Wat-A-Burger is planning to launch a burger priced as low as Rs19/-.
With so much to offer, Wat-a-Burger is one food outlet to look out for.
