Date:11/04/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/04/11/stories/2006041101850800.htm

Back Pizza Corner to add 40 outlets

Our Bureau

MR ANOOP SEQUEIRA, CEO, Pizza Corner India (P) Ltd, at the launch of a retail outlet in Chennai on Monday. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , April 10

Geneva-based Global Franchise Architects (the parent company of Pizza Corner and Coffee World) plans to open 40 more Pizza Corner outlets in the country in a year.

It will also open 10 more Coffee World outlets in India by March 2007. Talks are on to launch The Cream and Fudge Factory - the ice cream restaurant of Global Franchise Architects (GFA) - in Chennai or Bangalore, post-July.

Inaugurating Pizza Corner's 45-seater dine-in outlet on C.P. Ramaswamy Road in Chennai (the 46th outlet in the country), Mr Anoop Sequeira, CEO, GFA India, said the target is to have 60 GFA outlets (53 pizza and seven Coffee World outlets) in the country by the end of April.

Thirty would be company-owned and the remaining would be franchisee outlets.

Seven new pizza outlets are planned in Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Mangalore and Noida in April.

Two Coffee World outlets will come up in Chennai and Bangalore by the end of this month. (Currently, there are five Coffee World outlets in India - three in Bangalore, and one each in Mumbai and Delhi.)

Bangalore-headquartered Pizza Corner has a strong presence in South India. Added Mr Sequeira: "We also have a good presence in Delhi and NCR. We have just made in-roads into the West with an outlet in Pune and are in the process of getting commitment for two more here."

Over the next one year, outlets are planned in Kolkata and Gujarat too.

It has also moved into smaller cities such as Manipal, Vizag, Hisar, Agra and Trivandrum, "considering that the retail market has matured in smaller towns too", said Mr Sequeira.