Tanvi Shukla

Mumbai: From processing foods on small scale to owning and managing hotels, restaurants and exporting packaged foods,Wadhawan Holdings has lined up big hospitality and retail plans.

Dish Hospitality, a part of Wadhawan Holdings, has begun food processing operations at a 16,000 square feet production facility in Kalina, Mumbai.

The company will also venture into retort packaging, which is packing food to provide it shelf life of at least 6 months. It would involve importing raw material from places such as China and Australia, processing it and exporting to Middle East and North America.

Dish, which has a capacity of 20,000 meals per shift and three shifts a day, is in final stage talks with Singapore and Australia based companies.

A hospitality group called CP from Singapore will source meal packages from Dish.

Dish Hospitality has invested Rs 20 crore for the ‘Centre Kitchen’ at Kalina in Mumbai excluding land and technology investments.

Roger Narula, chief executive officer, Dish Hospitality Pvt Ltd, said, “We are focussing on food packaging and processing now and would look at dairy (such as manufacturing cheese) down the road.”

Narula was talking to the media at the Food Forum 2008 in Mumbai.

Narula said Dish would soon start Sanchos, the in-house restaurant offering Mexican cuisine and cultural feel.

It will also bring in an Italian cuisine restaurant based out of Bangkok and is in talks with a Berlin-based group too, Narula said. Metros will be the target areas to begin with.

Though he did not divulge investments figures, Narula said it will be internally funded.

Dish had announced last year that it has obtained the master franchise for the Dubai-based Jumeirah Group restaurant Noodle House.

Thirty five Noodle House outlets will be opened in the next three years.

The company is also planning to own and manage hotels for the group in India.

Wadhawan Food Retail, the retail venture of Wadhawan Holdings is also in the process of expanding from 175 stores to 400 by end of the financial year 2009 and 1,500 in the next four years.

“Investments required for each store ranges from Rs 50-70 lakh. All of these will be convenient stores under the brands of Spinach, Sabka Bazaar and S Mart” Srinath Sridharan, vice-president and headstrategic alliances, Wadhawan Holdings, said.

The Mumbai based parent company also runs other formats such as Home Store and Lifestyle chains.

Source : DNA