Fast Food in India

From unsure and sometimes rough beginnings, American food chains are growing fast in India now. Papa John’s just entered and KFC is resurgent. McDonald’s now has 91 restaurants in India and feeds 350,000 people a day. Pizza Hut had 126 restaurants in July and is expanding fast into small towns, as is Subway, with 79 restaurants. In fact, Indian menu options have become standard for American chains here.

The Peshawari Chana Paneer Pizza, a more recent innovation, was developed by Pizza Hut India’s marketing and research team, headed by Sanjiv Mediratta. The intended consumer? Anyone craving “The Great Indian Treat.”

As with most new ideas, people scoffed at first. “When I was doing this pizza, everyone put me down and said, ‘We can’t put chickpeas on it; there is no value.’ I said, if you look at an Indian consumer, he eats bhatura, which is a bread, and he eats it with chana. My crust is also a bread. So I just need to put some chana and onion on top of it.”

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