5 Key Food Franchising Trends Hitting 2018

2018 is going to be a path-breaking year for food franchising in India. It’s going to be the year of millennial centric QSR brands, health & organic food. Also, we are going to see growth of regional food franchising kicking off in the year to come. Young India’s disposable income is increasing day by day and youngsters aged between 15-25 have lots of disposable time and money to spend. Eating out has increased tremendously outshining with new habits and trends.

The rise of the QSR Segment: Social networks like Instagram and Face book has changed the way youngsters make their food choices.  Food centered around youth like Waffles, Milkshakes, Poutine, and New age dessert QSRs are expected to flood the market through franchising. Due to less investment size, aspirational product leading to high tickets and high store level profitability these franchises make an attractive preposition for an investor who wants to owns a food franchise. 2017 has seen immense growth in categories of waffles, milkshakes and poutine whereas 2018 will bring out the category leaders in these products.

Specialized Products will Grow: Encouragement of entrepreneurship in India and inclination of next generation to diversify in the exciting food business will drive excessive franchise demands in these categories.  Due to deeper penetration of social media, western street food has become very accessible and aspirational for the Gen Y, giving opportunity to restaurant operators to build and lead the category of such specialized products.

The year to come will also see brands growing in the category of Pancakes, churros, tex-mex, cookies and artisanal ice creams.

Focus will be on Organizing Sector: To cater to the millennials meals market, brands that are serving “the new staple” viz burgers, pizzas, pastas, milkshakes and similar products will get organized and grow through franchising. Frequent eating out habits and acceptability of such food in day-to-day diets will make franchising of such brands sustainable.  Generally speaking, the year to come will see growth of organized players offering good “staple food”.

Healthy will be Trending: We have seen eruption of lots of health centric brands in the last couple of years. These mom-pops brands have seen huge success in their respective regions and the tier 1 cities of India are now ready to have more of such outlets. The trendsetters in health food segments will only grow in 2018. 2018 will also see the beginning of franchising of organic and vegan food brands as there is lots of awareness of the segment.

Traditional will Keep Growing: Real authentic regional food has found deeper acceptability within varied age groups. Brands focusing on real regional cuisines like coastal, malabari, goan specialized regional south Indian cuisine will have a better case to start franchising their stores and take the regional cuisine to various parts of India. This trend will establish a much-awaited trend of Indian brands making a global mark and 2018 will form a pivotal year in the history of Indian food franchising growing in countries outside of India.

It will also be very exciting to see growth of franchising in segments of specialized teas and coffees, delivery cloud kitchens, food entertainment hubs, food pop-ups and highway food courts. With so much competition in food franchising, India will soon have its first locally grown Restaurant Franchising Management Company in 2018.