Spencer’s Retail: ties up with Au Bon Pain

Kolkata / IN. (abp) RPG Enterprises is one of India´s largest industrial conglomerates. Now Spencer´s Retail, part of the 13’500-crore-Rupees RPG Group, has tied up with the U.S.-based fast casual dining and bakery chain Au Bon Pain, to launch outlets across the country. As part of this, it plans to set up 100 standalone cafes in the next two years at an outlay of 50 crore Rupees.

Au Bon Pain, headquartered in Boston (MA), operates over 225 outlets in the U.S., South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. For the Indian operations, a joint venture company, Novel Confectioners Ltd., has been formed between Spencer´s Retail and Varin Narula, which would be the master-franchisee of Au Bon Pain in India.

Incidentally, Varin Narula is director and promoter of Au Bon Pain Thailand, with eleven years of experience in handling the brand´s franchise in Thailand. «The Indian joint venture is planning to set up its first 2’000 square feet flagship store in Bangalore by December, followed by outlets in Hyderabad and Chennai», he said.

«We will initially be concentrating on the south India», RPG group vice chairman Sanjiv Goenka said at the same press meeting in Kolkata. Later, shop-in-shop stores would also be launched with a pan-India roll-out covering the north and the east. The 100 outlets will have an average size of 1’500 square feet though smaller formats, such as shop-in-shops or outlets in college campuses and airports, among others, will also be explored. A factory will be set up in Bangalore initially to supply products to the southern region.