JumboKing sees a bright future in QSR: Launches Butter JumboKing
QSR (quick service restaurants) have a no-frills but fast customer servuce time. As a concept; they've been successful worldwide and JumboKing's owner Dheeraj Gupta talks about why the brand is poised to lead in a category where it has no organised competition.
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Dheeraj Gupta and his wife Reeta Gupta with APJ Abdul Kalam
-- What started as a couple's entrepreneurship initiative in 2001 is now a full blown retail chain with some very respectable leadership; Dheeraj Gupta; the man with a vision.....the promoter of JumboKing.
The little yellow stores are ubiquitous with a fast-paced city's need to satiate a hunger; a population that has no time to sit down to eat; yet needs a quick hygienic solution.
Masterstroke; give people what they want said all the marketers.
Almost 50 stores now and everyone' s asking; will people outside of Mumbai eat a vada pav? Questions are not new for this man who at every stage has been asked about the viability of his plans.......starting from will an only vada pav chain be successful?
Says Dheeraj, "Mumbai is 4 times the size of Hong Kong. JumboKing has a long way to go and innovation has been our biggest strength. Between Mumbai, Thane and later Pune; we will build a 100 crore company."
So what after Mumbai? Adds Dheeraj in his composed vein, " its not about geography; its more a lifestyle choice. Wherever people are in a hurry ; finger food like JumboKing will have a demand. And I do not subscribe to the geographical limitations of a vada pav; people might have perceived Pizzas to have geographic limitations 50 years ago."
Eyebrows were rasied when Dheeraj first put Schezwan sauce into vada pav in 2004, and launched it with Ritesh deshmukh and Shreyas Talpade....an innovation that took the city's college goers by storm. Cholle Jumbo King ; butter jumboking ; grilled jumboking and cheese jumboking followed in quick succession as a whole generation started replacing the word vada pav with JumboKing....a cooler much more stylish term.
Along came Bollywood stars like Sonali Kulkarni, Preity Zinta, Sachin Tendulkar and R Madhavan who attended JumboKing's various consumer connect programs. All this added a zing and aspiration to a vada pav brand; and the tagline became "say wow to vada pav."
From kudos given by APJ Abdul Kalam to being called the most exciting business in Asia by BBC, JumboKing has been the darling of the media and the most exciting QSR (quick service restaurant) brand that India has seen in a really long time.
