Oldest grilled burger chain celebrates 10th yr

Biggies Burger, the country’s oldest and largest home-grown specialty burger brand, is celebrating its 10th anniversary, besides hinting at global expansion. Biggies Burger is the pioneer of grilled burgers that took the first-of-itskind initiative to introduce the concept of grilled burgers to Indians. This burger chain has to its credit the fame of having sold 50 lakh grilled and baked burgers since its inception.

In the process, the company has become India’s first home-grown burger brand to successfully compete with its American counterparts. Biggies Burger currently has a network of 57 stores and is aiming at expanding this to 300 by 2024. Bootstrapped in the year 2011 with a single kiosk at Electronics City, Bengaluru, the burger chain has grown exponentially to become a much-recognised brand with its presence now in 21 cities of 13 states. Biggies Burger aims on expanding its network in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Biggies Burger was started in the year 2011 under the leadership of Biraja Rout, a techie-turned-foodpreneur, with the aim to bring in innovations to the process of burger making. Biggies Burger entered the market with a disruption in the very process of burger making and has topped the bucket list of most Indian foodies in just a decade’s time. Biraja made this possible by leveraging localisation as a competitive advantage in the market that was dominated by American burger brands. It achieved consistency in quality and taste across the chain by integrating kitchen automation using IoT.

Biraja Prasad Rout, the founder, said, “At Biggies Burger, we are on a mission to make Indianised and healthy burgers. Specialty burgers have been our core strength. In an era when health has become the first priority, we take the pride of selling 80 per cent or more baked and grilled burgers in our portfolio. Biggies Burger is the first burger brand in India to offer its customers a wholly baked, low-calorie burger that takes absolutely zero oil to cook. As a national brand, it’s our responsibility to lead and set the right standards of the burger trend in the country. And we are at it.”

Not only has he succeeded in building a home-grown burger brand strong enough to compete with American burger brands, Biraja, along with his co-founders Sandeep and Abhilash, has also been working towards easing the burger store franchising process for those who want to explore the QSR business opportunities in their localities.

Sandeep Satpathy said, “We have seen the toughest time during Covid. Franchise trust on the brand remained intact during Covid. The situation, in fact, has been a boon for us, apart from the initial two-three months. We doubled the number of our stores during the Covid period, a morale booster for the whole team. We are targeting 100 stores by this yearend and a lofty 300 stores by 2024. We have set up one store in Coimbatore, where operations have begun. We have investors from Singapore, another place we are planning to set up stores. By 2022, we will be in Sri Lanka.”

“With big expansion plans ahead, it is important that we ramp up perations and be ready to handle various challenges. Presently, our focus is on reducing manual work using technologies in inventory management, billing and customer data,” Abilash Bellur, the other Biggies Burger co-founder, added.