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The popularity of health foods and restaurants have skyrocketed in recent years. Once a niche market is now a burgeoning billion-dollar industry.
It is rightly said that fitness is 70% diet and 30% fitness, and people are now taking this fact very seriously. There is a revolution of health food in the market since people are leaning more toward healthier options today.
One can easily witness this “green revolution” in the market owing to the increasing number of health cafes, or popular restaurant chains offering healthier alternatives. In India alone, the health food segment is catering to around 50 lakh people in top six cities including Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai; and is growing at 10-15% annually.
According to the survey, 76% of adults are now trying to eat healthier at restaurants than they did 2 years back. Thus, investing in health food café can be a profitable business opportunity.
Emerging Trends
Many franchised restaurants, after noticing the rise in popularity of healthy food, have devoted a portion of their menus to this trend. Many restaurant chains—whether quick service or full-service—have launched healthier options in their menus. For Instance, KFC came up with a grilled chicken option, to capture the consumers’ demand for healthy food.
Customisation is in a boom right now. One can witness this trend in almost every industry. In the healthy food segment also, consumers expect the restaurants to offer the customised products on their menu according to their dietary requirements, live vegan, gluten-free, and so on.
Subway has been a pioneer in customising sandwiches according to a consumer’s needs and demands, but now many restaurants are offering such service after seeing this strong consumer trend.
Business Model
There are many franchises available for health food, such as Subway, Wrap It Up, WhichWich etc. For instance, to take a Wrap It Up franchise, you will require an investment of INR 50 Lakhs for restaurant model and INR 25-35 lakhs for the kiosk model.
The operational cost is somewhere around 70% of the total sales. The food cost is 35% and the labour cost is around 10%. The anticipated profit is around 20-22%.
ShauryaBhatta, General Manager Sales, Wrap It Up, said, “Health food market is growing at a double-digit rate right now. For instance, Subway started out with 15 outlets, 12 years back. But they had to wind up and then they entered the market again, and now they have around 350 stores pan India. This says a lot about the future of health food in the market. The health food market may grow up to 50% in the next five years.”
