Despite the fact that much of the foodservice industry has been decimated by the COVID-19 lockdowns, restaurant concepts that have managed to adapt their business models to robustly include take-out and delivery options have thrived. As a result, some QSR brands have experienced significant year over year gains, and Canadian fast-food company Butterchick is calling for franchisees to be a part of the significant growth the brand is forecasting for 2021.
Currently Butterchick only has one restaurant, located in the foodcourt at Sheppard Centre in Toronto’s uptown. However, while food categories such as burgers, pizza, and sandwiches currently saturate the market, ethnic cuisine continues to gain in worldwide popularity. Delivering bold flavours, Indian food is one of the most popular ethnic foods segments in the QSR category despite being considerably under serviced. Butterchick aims to become the global market leader in the QSR Indian food segment and fill the gap within the foodservice industry with its unique business concept not requiring Indian cooks to prepare the food.
The Butterchick business concept is unique due to vertical integration with its parent company, Kataria Foods International (KFI Inc.), that produces all the required sauces, pastes, marinades, chutneys, and savoury drinks.
With its streamlined format, Butterchick can also make fresh tandoori naan in minutes without a tandoor or tandoori chef. The overall concept is designed to make daily operations easier and create logical customers by securing satisfying and consistently high-quality Indian food.
Established in 2006, Kataria Foods International is a family-owned manufacturer of premium Indian sauces based in Mississauga, Ontario. In 2015, KFI was inspired to fulfill a glaring gap in the QSR market by creating a real Indian fast-food restaurant that could serve high-quality, authentic dishes in a fast and consistent manner.
Ranked as one of Canada’s fastest growing companies, KFI began with the belief that they could offer Canadians a better-tasting, more-authentic product that was made in Canada, by Canadians, from Canadian-grown ingredients. Since then, KFI has worked to reach its goal of becoming Canada’s first choice for authentic Indian sauces. Currently, KFI sauces are sold across Canada by retailers such as Loblaw, Walmart, Costco, Overwaitea, and Metro, to name a few.
A calculated venture into the QSR market began with a test run at a pop up location at the World Food Cafe in Toronto’s downtown Harbour Front. After completing several successful events at that space, and after being featured on Toronto’s CP24 news channel, the stage was set for Butterchick’s first permanent location. Today, through market-tested innovation and refinements, the brand is now growing its market presence via a franchise model.
“As a successful entrepreneurial family running an Indian food manufacturing facility, we recognized an opportunity to create a restaurant brand to fill a gap within the QSR industry. Our objective is to change the perception of Indian food from being heavily curried and spicy, to flavourful with different herbs and spices and less oily. Developed using these proprietary sauces and streamlined cooking methods, Butterchick was born. I look forward to meeting you on your journey to become a franchise partner with us and together building Butterchick into a global powerhouse brand,” said KFI Founder, Kiran Kataria.
Due to COVID-19 there has been a noticeable shift in consumer behaviour towards more-frequent digital ordering and third-party delivery leading to more off-premise consumption.
Butterchick is ideally positioned to capitalize on this growing trend. The Butterchick menu is comfort food that travels well and is ideal for take-out and on-line delivery platforms. According to DoorDash, in 2020 Butter Chicken was the second most popular food and was the number one ordered dish for dinner.
Butterchick U offers an extensive training program that will teach you the knowledge and skills necessary to become a successful Butterchick franchise owner. Our primary objective to set you up for success. We also provide on-going continued support and mentoring after you have opened your Butterchick location.
Inspired by shipping containers commonly found on India’s roadside serving street food, Butterchick’s restaurant design incorporates finishes and vibrant colours that reflect the brand’s heritage. Butterchick QSR locations are adaptable to a variety of trade environments, such as food court, storefronts, high street retail locations, mixed-use developments, and airports, to name a few. Generally, the food court model would require between 300-400 square feet to operate, with the street front model requiring 1,000-1,500 square feet.
For Butterchick franchising and real estate, Jeff Young can be reached at jeff@butterchick.com.
For other brands looking for franchise consulting contact Jeff Young at jeffyoungfranchising@gmail.com or call: 647.888.8420.
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