Kartikay Kashyap, Financial Express / Brandwagon 30 July 2026 Wendy's first foray into India’s quick service restaurant (QSR) market in 2015 remained a non-starter. Sierra Nevada Restaurants, the then master franchisee, could not scale its retail presence beyond four conventional restaurants concentrated largely in Delhi-NCR. This limited physical availability, brand awareness and ordering frequency. Ten years on and under a new master franchisee Rebel Foods since 2023, Wendy’s seems to have turned over a new leaf. With more than 250 stores, and ₹200 crore in revenues, the brand wants to be the one-stop destination for the younger generation where consumers…
Sowmya Ramasubramanian, Vaeshnavi Kasthuril (MINT) Bengaluru, 13 July 2026 India's vertical quick-commerce startups across categories like baby care, medicines and fashion, backed by venture capital heavyweights, are beginning to redefine what “quick” means. For some, the race is no longer about cutting delivery times by a few more minutes. Instead, founders are increasingly talking about better assortment, sharper curation, stronger supply chains and healthier unit economics as the factors that will decide whether the model survives. Baby care platform Ozi, backed by Blume Ventures and RTP Global, has settled on a roughly 60-minute delivery promise. Founder Amit Sah told Mint…
Viveat Susan Pinto, S Shanthi (Financial Express) 13 July 2026 India’s new-age coffee chains are accelerating expansion despite continuing losses, as investors bet that the country’s under-penetrated branded cafe market can deliver long-term growth. Third Wave Coffee plans to open 100 cafes this financial year while targeting company-wide break-even. Blue Tokai aims to expand from 240 outlets to 800 by FY30 and is preparing for an eventual public listing. Nothing Before Coffee (NBC), which has grown to 114 cafes across 45 cities, plans to more than double its network over the next two years. The expansion comes even as profitability…
Nivedita Mookerji, Business Standard 12 Jul 2026 Recently, fast moving consumer goods distributors posed some existential questions to the government: Have the rules changed for foreign-owned ecommerce firms? With that, the All India Consumer Products Distribution Federation made a plea to the government to examine if foreign-funded ecommerce and quick commerce players can run inventory-led businesses through warehouses and dark stores. The question mark is around the operating model of the big daddies of retail — both from America — under the current foreign direct investment (FDI) guidelines. One of them is Bentonville-headquartered Walmart, which holds a controlling stake in…
Neethi Lisa Rojan & Vaeshnavi Kasthuril, MINT Mumbai/Bengaluru, 8 July 2026 The collapse of the US-Iran peace deal in less than a month has rattled India's consumer sector, reviving fears that higher oil prices and fresh supply-chain disruptions could squeeze demand just as companies were betting on a broader recovery. The renewed uncertainty followed US President Donald Trump's declaration on Wednesday that the peace deal with Iran was effectively over, alongside Washington's decision to end a sanctions waiver on Iranian energy supplies. The market reaction was swift. The Nifty FMCG Index fell 2.49% on Wednesday, underperforming the broader market as…
Speciality Restaurants expanding into high-margin QSR and cloud kitchen spaces - @devangshu shared his perspective on the opportunities and realities of managing a diverse "house of brands" in the food service sector #India #strategy #diversification
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
