Jumbo King Pvt Ltd, which has branded 'vada pav' (bun with fried potato dumplings) will open 26 more outlets across Mumbai and take the total to 60 by March 2007.
The company, which is in its fifth year now, will add five outlets each in Nashik and five in Pune and the rest in Mumbai.
Currently, "we have 24 outlets and one central kitchen employing 200 unskilled workers. The outlets supply jumbo-sized vada pav, which is considered a complete meal of common men in the city and is available at a nominal price of Rs 6," Reeta Gupta, director of the company, said.
"Our main aim was to brand a common man's vada pav and to offer maximum value to our customers," Gupta said.
"By August next year we expect to franchise 100 outlets in entire Maharashtra," she said.
Asked whether it would affect the business of the roadside vendors, she said, "we are selling only vada pav and not other dishes like bhajiya, which the roadside vendors prepare."
"Besides normal vada pav we also serve brown bread vada pav and cheese vada pav for the students," she added.
The company earns about Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million) annually by selling vada pavs and it's major expansion plans aims to have 500 outlets by August 2008 in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Gupta said every day 40,000 people consume Jumbo King vada pavs from their 25 outlets. "Our centralised kitchen is located at Malad, where you can see pavs coming out on a conveyer belt."
Asked about the central kitchen for Pune and Nasik, she said feasibility studies were being conducted.
In Mumbai, the suburban Bhandup and Marine lines outlet in south Mumbai are larger outlets, she added.
