Hail the new Masala King “HRH Jubilant Foodworks” – Chal hatt MDH !

The Americans are notorious for americanising various cuisines and making more money off the American versions thant the people who actually owned the cuisine.

• Panda Express
• Chipotle
• Dominos
• Subway 

They first looked at ways to make production easier and more efficient and then brought in food flavouring agents to make the fake food taste authentic. For example Barbeque sauce ! McDonalds can give you the experience of barbecue with a synthetic sauce, at probably 1% of the cost of actually barbecuing meat. Do this for a few years and the synthetic experience becomes the de-facto experience.

Jubilant Foods has a skill better than the Americans. He takes the Americanised version of different foods and then Indianises it. Total Genius Aadmi hai.

• He put paneer in pizza
• He started serving Mathri with masala chai at Dunkin
• He introduced Bun Maska and Bhujiya in a doughnut shop
• He kicked out dim sums from the Chinese menu and started serving Momos instead
• You can order Jeera Nimbu Paani along with your chicken in hot garlic and veg fried rice

Total genius Aadmi, Total genius.
Look at the new masala pizza menu – Is this a punjabi restaurant on a pizza menu ?

All things aside, what’s tasty and doesn’t give you loosies, will have a massive market in india as long as it is value for money.The old saying goes sundar, sasta aur tikao – Looks Tempting, Value for Money and no Pet Kharaab is a sure shot way to make money in the food industry. Of course you have the entire band of healthy eating, vegans, organic people yada yada – all these people are not even 1% so, though there is a lot of noise in that area, it can easily be ignored for some time to come.

The best thing of eating chaat on the way side, is the ability to customise – Bhaiya thoda yeah dalna, bhaiya thoda who zyaada dalna etc etc…. Fast forward to ordering for your pizza online and you can do the same damn thing thru and app. Very soon, you might be able to do that with Chinese and Indian food too. 

We love customisations and dominos has engineered its supply chain in such a way, that you can get your customised dish home in 30 minutes. Think about it. While we look at it as a food company it is actually a logistics super house. Take order – execute – pack and deliver in 30 minutes or FREEE !!! Dammit – Freee ! It’s a tails I win, heads I pay for what I ordered – I wish there was an options strategy like this.

The big corona effect – When people get a heart attack, or a near death experience of sorts, they are usually careful about their health for at least a couple of years after that. This human behaviour can be extrapolated into being a lot safer and cautious for at least a few months in the future. With the kind of sanitisation drive and supply chain security and guarantee of ingredients that people like Dominos and McDonalds are giving, this according to me will be a huge change in trend as you go forward.

Packaging The best QSRs have the ability to deliver, serve and dispose the container in where the food completes its entire lifecycle. For. e.g  if you order a McDonalds burger, you eat off the box, wipe your mouth with the tissue that he gives you and dont even reach for ketchup from the cupboard. Now compare that with ordering say Chinese from a regular guy near home. You have to use home dishes, plates cutlery etc and then wash it up later — uugghhh.  Imagine you get the McDonalds Burger or Dominos Pizza convenience for your Chinese food.

Say Hello to WONGS Kitchen.Desi Chinese – Served the American way – deliver – serve – dispose. Desi Chinese has two big problem – AJINOMOTO and unregulated soda. Both that are causing major gastro intestinal disorders. Wongs kitchen, solves this problem amongst many others.The desi Chinese market is easily 10x that of the pizza market. Dominos today has over 75% of the organised pizza market. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jubliant sell the same amount of Chinese food in less than 5 years from now.

Oh the new pizza guys – supposedly competitionOvenstory , Onesta, Eagle boys etc etc will be like Bira, White Owl to Kingfisher – All fart and no shit.However they will do one big favour for dominoes. To differentiate themselves, they will hyper innovate and create new markets, which Dominos will smile at and then replicate at 1/10the the cost. 

TASTE-BRAND-ONTIME-CUSTOMIZATION-UNIVERSALACCESS and yeah – the genius Aadmi behind it.

Reminds me of ICICI BankSometimes Jubiliant reminds me of ICICI Bank. A great business which is able to create as well as unlock new businesses in the future. The best part is that the pie of the main business is so large that it can continue to increase its main business, for the foreseeable future.

Other Points to ponder about – or other specialities in Jubilant’s armoury

• Dominos has a ad budget of about 200cr. Yes two hundred crore budget for ads on pizzas.
• Shares pledged by the promoter are down from 54% in 2016 to 3% today.
• FII shareholding is up from 9.5% in 2016 to 36% today.
• Separate Veg and Non Veg preparation areas.
• All kitchens are transparent. Which company kitchen has the balls to allow customers to see every operation inside the kitchen ?
• Promoter has clarified that they will not be looking at any M&A activity. For e.g stupid ideas like buying out Pizza Hut or Coffee Day.
• In the peak of the lockdown dominos was the only one that was allowed permission to function for 2 weeks, simple because they could guarantee contactless production and delivery – taking responsibility for their entire process, which no one else could do as they had to depend on third parties like Swiggy.
• They recently shut 105 unprofitable locations and are immediately opening 100+ new ones. Obviously they will get killer deals on the rentals in the pandemic crisis.
• Dunkin is experimenting with a much smaller store front of 100-200 sqft. 
• Manpower has become further rationalised as well as automated.
• Keeping a pizza oven running on a conveyor belt, is like keeping a glass furnace on. It has to be on, irrespective of the load passing through – i.e if you don’t have scale, you are dead. Dominos has scale and it will continue to do so.
• Delivery charges which were a massive danger word in the delivery business have now become a part of life. It is not a swear word anymore and a big relief to dominos as all the guys – Swiggy, Zomato etc are doing it. In fact Swiggy has made tipping compulsory in Hyderabad. Dominos still hasn’t.
• Dominos is a disruptor. Better still its the disruptor that keeps disrupting itself. Pizza. Burger.Coffee.Masala Chai. Masala and Pastes. Chinese and Indian cooking in the anvil.
• All new storefronts are further rationalised for delivery and takeaway.
• The supply chain efficiency that they have achieved in a market like india can make amazon cry.
• Delivery is not achieved at the cost of product quality or cost.
• The company NEEDS NO GROWTH CAPITAL in the foreseeable future.
• The disaster recovery of this business has probably been the fastest in the country.
• The 100+ new Dominos store are all delivery only format, with massive reduction in rentals.
• Many existing store rentals are being rationalised on profit sharing basis.

And the biggest factor

• Demographics
  • Dominos – India has the largest population under the age of 25 in the world
  • Chef Boss – Working age population to rise by 135 million by FY 2022 as India hosts 20% of the world’s working age population

Kissne socha MDH se zyaad pizza walla masala behchega ?

If you are reaching to your phone to order some pizza, first punch in a buy order for Jubiliant Foodworks.