McDonald’s north and east to invest up to ₹600 cr

MMG Group, which owns and operates McDonald’s restaurants in northern and eastern India, will invest ₹400-600 crore over the next three years on reimaging of outlets and opening new ones, its chairman, Sanjeev Agrawal, told ET.

“All the investment financing shall be sourced internally. Currently, we have approximately 6,000 employees, with plans to hire about 1,500 people this year,” said Agrawal, adding that the company plans to hire about 5,000 people over the next three years.

MMG Group had won the rights to run McDonald’s outlets in northern and eastern India three years ago. Since then, McDonald’s outlets have come up in several new markets, including Orissa, Assam and Shimla, according to Agrawal. “This year, our target is to open 40 new restaurants. Currently, we have 170 outlets. We shall also be opening the first McDonald’s outlets in markets such as Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Sri Ganganagar, Siliguri and Gorakhpur, besides expanding in eastern India,” he said. “We are also expanding our footprint by opening more outlets in Delhi, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh this year.”

MMG has also opened ‘no onion, no garlic’ McDonald’s outlets along the Vaishno Devi shrine path at Katra and Tarakot, expanding the number of vegetarian McDonald’s restaurants operational in the region to three.

Agrawal said even after the new ‘experience of the future’ outlets, there is no intention to change the pricing, but the company will consider introducing premium offerings by the end of this year or the beginning of next year, as demand for such products has increased.