Brands
Rebel Foods serves Easybites a faster route to multi city growth
MUMBAI: When scaling a food brand feels like juggling flaming pans, Rebel Foods is offering a cooler, faster flame. Through its brand growth platform Rebel Launcher, the cloud kitchen major has teamed up with Easybites to help the young, fast-growing brand expand across key Indian markets.
As part of the partnership, Easybites is now live across ten Rebel Foods cloud kitchens in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The rollout is only the starter course. The brand plans to enter Chennai and add more locations over the coming months, using Rebel Launcher’s infrastructure to scale quickly without the usual operational drag.
Easybites has built early traction with a tight, delivery-friendly menu centred on fried chicken, burgers and wraps, leaning into flavour-forward comfort food designed for consistency at scale. By plugging into Rebel Launcher, the brand can enter multiple neighbourhoods in a city from day one, while using data-led insights to fine-tune performance without compromising on quality or brand identity.
Rebel Foods co-founder Ankur Sharma said the collaboration reflects the company’s ambition to create a shared growth ecosystem for food brands. He noted that Rebel Launcher is designed to help partners expand efficiently across geographies by leveraging Rebel Foods’ technology, infrastructure and operational depth.
Easybites CEO Masoud Mohamed described Rebel Launcher as a key enabler in the brand’s southern expansion. He said the platform allows Easybites to understand new markets faster and reach more consumers per city from the outset, adding that the partnership is seen as a long-term strategic alliance.
Rebel Launcher positions itself as a lower-capex, faster go-to-market alternative for restaurant brands, handling kitchens, supply chain and operations while letting partners focus on food and brand-building. The Easybites tie-up adds to a growing roster of partners already using the platform, including Natural’s Ice Cream, ITC, Taco Bell, Wow! Momo, Biryani Blues, Smoor, Parsi Dairy Farm, Daryaganj, Chaipoint and several others.
As India’s food delivery landscape grows more crowded, the Rebel Foods–Easybites partnership underlines a simple idea: in the race to scale, sometimes the smartest move is sharing the kitchen.
Brands
Jubilant FoodWorks faces Rs 47.5 crore GST demand, plans appeal
Tax authorities flag alleged misclassification of restaurant services
MUMBAI:Â Jubilant FoodWorks Limited has landed in a tax tussle after receiving a GST demand of Rs 47.5 crore from the office of the additional commissioner of CGST and central excise in Thane, Maharashtra.
The order, issued under the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, relates to an alleged incorrect classification of certain services under the category of restaurant services. According to the tax authorities, this classification resulted in a short payment of goods and services tax for the period between the financial years 2019-20 and 2021-22.
The demand includes Rs 47.5 crore in GST along with an equal amount as penalty, in addition to applicable interest. The order was received by the company on March 13, 2026.
In a regulatory filing to the BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited, the company said it disagrees with the order and believes its arguments were not adequately considered.
The company is preparing to challenge the decision and plans to file an appeal. It added that once the redressal process is complete, the demand is likely to be dropped.
Despite the sizeable figure attached to the notice, the company said it does not expect any material impact on its financials, operations or other activities.
The disclosure was signed by Suman Hegde, EVP and chief financial officer, who confirmed that the company received the order at 19:06 IST on March 13 and has already initiated steps to contest it.
The development places the quick service restaurant major in the middle of a tax debate that could hinge on how certain restaurant-linked services are classified under GST rules. For now, the company appears ready to take the matter from the tax office to the appeals desk.
