Brands
Django brings Bergner India on board MasterChef India
MUMBAI: Django has turned up the heat in brand partnerships by bringing together Bergner India and MasterChef India for the show’s upcoming season. The integrated marketing agency has facilitated Bergner India’s entry as the official special partner of MasterChef India, which premieres on 5 January 2026.
The collaboration pairs Bergner’s premium cookware and modern kitchen innovation with a television property that has made cooking competitive, creative and hugely popular. For Bergner, it is a chance to step into millions of Indian kitchens through a platform that celebrates skill, aspiration and everyday culinary ambition.
Django co-founder Vivek Shah, said the match was as natural as a well balanced recipe. ‘MasterChef India is culturally relevant and instinctively aligned with Bergner’s brand ethos. Our focus was to build a partnership that goes beyond screen time and creates long term brand value. We are delighted to help strengthen Bergner’s connection with India’s growing community of home cooks.’
A spokesperson for Bergner India echoed the sentiment, noting that the show mirrors the brand’s philosophy. ‘MasterChef India stands for innovation, precision and passion in the kitchen, values that are central to Bergner. This association allows us to engage with consumers in an authentic and meaningful way. Django played a key strategic role in making this collaboration happen.’
As part of the partnership, Bergner India will feature across on-air brand integrations and digital extensions throughout the season, ensuring the brand stays front and centre as India’s favourite cooking competition unfolds.
Brands
Dunkin’ Donuts to exit India as Jubilant FoodWorks ends 15-year franchise deal
The quick service restaurant giant is ending a 15-year franchise partnership with the American doughnut chain, even as it renews its Domino’s agreement for another 15 years
NOIDA: Dunkin’ is done in India. Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the country’s leading quick service restaurant operator, has decided not to renew its franchise agreement with the American coffee and doughnut chain, and will wind down its Indian stores in a phased manner before December 31, 2026, bringing a 15-year partnership to a quiet, loss-laden close.
The decision, approved by JFL’s board on March 30, 2026, ends a relationship that began with a Multiple Unit Development Franchise Agreement signed on February 24, 2011. JFL will now evaluate and undertake what it described in a regulatory filing as the “rationalisation and/or cessation of certain operations and/or sale, transfer or disposal of assets and/or assignment or transfer of franchise rights,” all in consultation with Dunkin’s brand owners and strictly within the terms of the original agreement.
The numbers tell the story bluntly. In the financial year 2024-25, Dunkin’ India posted a revenue of Rs 37 crore against a loss of Rs 19 crore — a haemorrhage that was always going to test the patience of a parent company recording revenues of Rs 6,104 crore and a profit of Rs 194 crore in the same period. Doughnuts, it turns out, were never going to move the needle.
The contrast with JFL’s handling of its other marquee franchise could hardly be sharper. Even as it walks away from Dunkin’, the company has just doubled down on Domino’s, signing a fresh Master Franchise Agreement on March 31, 2026, granting it exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino’s Pizza stores in India for 15 years, with an option to renew for a further 10.
JFL, incorporated in 1995 and promoted by the Bharatia family, operates a network of more than 3,500 stores across six markets — India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Its portfolio includes Domino’s and Popeyes on the global side, and two home-grown brands: Hong’s Kitchen and COFFY, a café brand in Turkey.
For Dunkin’, India was always a stretch. The brand never quite cracked the cultural code in a market where filter coffee and chai command fierce loyalty and where the doughnut remains, at best, an occasional indulgence rather than a daily habit. Fifteen years, mounting losses and a parent with better things to spend its capital on was always going to be a difficult equation to solve.
The doughnut has had its last day. The pizza, however, is staying.
