The Mumbai-based Khorakiwala family that owns the Monginis brand have come back to the city after three years. They plan to open 60 outlets across Bengal with new partners and will gradually expand to 250 stores in about a year’s time.
Switz Foods Private Limited, the earlier franchisee, stopped using the Monginis brand while the Khorakiwalas decided to stay away from the market for three years as part of the resolution of conflict between the two.
There were around 100 odd stores at the time of separation and many were converted to the Mio Amore brand of Switz.
“There was a conflict of interest. They had their own brand. Those products were there in the store. The agreement we had said that the franchisee should not keep non-Monginis products. They became too ambitious. There was separation,” Zoher Khorakiwala, chairman and managing director of Monginis Food Private Limited, said on the sidelines of the relaunch of the brand in the city.
“They (Switz) established the brand to their credit. They needed some lead-time and we said fine,” he said on their three-year absence.
“But we were surprised and taken aback that there is so much regard for the Monginis brand here. Bengal and Calcutta is an important market for us. We have received as many as 750 franchisee applications. We have opened five stores today and we will gradually ramp up,” said Khorakiwala.
He anticipates competition but remains hopeful to expand the brand. The firm has purchased a ready-made structure in Kasba industrial estate to offer their food to the stores.
The Khorakiwala family took over the Monginis brand from the Italian Mongini brothers in 1956.
The 100-year-old brand has over 900 cake shops in places such as Mumbai, Kohlapur, Aurangabad, Pune, Goa, Surat, Baroda, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Patna. The company said it had over 2,000 distributors and more than 2.4 lakh retailers across the country.
Monginis clocked a turnover of Rs 450 crore last year and is anticipating a 15 per cent growth this year.
