Brands
ITC’s Cloud kitchen business expands its horizon across cities
Mumbai – As per media reports, the ITC (India Tobacco Company Limited) Group conglomerate decided to scale up its cloud kitchen business in metro cities, particularly Chennai. ITC is currently offering North Indian lunch and dinner and other bakery products online, the company decided to expand its horizon for the food business to cater to foodies. The company plans to roll out ventures including in Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata city.
As of now, ITC Ashirwad, ITC Master Chef, and ITC Sunfeast Baked Creations are there brands running in the food business under ITC brand.
The company has an expansion strategy to leverage the brand through platforms of food technology-based apps like Zomato, and Swingy. ITC cloud kitchens have a centralized and decentralised platform to serve consumer needs. As per media reports, 90 per cent of orders in food delivery apps are placed in dining hotels whereas the rest are from cloud kitchens. For serving premium food with standardisation of food company have plans to digitise the food business at pan India.
While speaking to the media ITC executive director Hemant Malik said, “The tech-learning needed for the business comes from our focus on digitalisation. The model involves setting up the central kitchen and satellite kitchens in cities where we operate. We are already the market leader in Bengaluru in the premium space within two years of operation and will now scale up in other cities,”
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.
