Pan India Food Solutions, earlier known as Blue Foods, is a Mumbai-based food company which is currently going through a difficult phase in business. It has recently shut down the shutters of its food court brands such as Spoon and Foodtalk.

The reasons that have seemingly dragged down the business potential of the brand in the market are low price realizations combined with steep rentals. Today, it intends to focus on fine dining formats as it enters new markets.

Experimental formats such as the Bistro, a high-end cafeteria brand, and Penne (Italian food) are also being sidelined and will not be a focus area for the company.

“Food court was not a profitable model. We have been forced to scale it down from 15 to just 5. The average price realisation is low and the format ends up as a service provider for consumers. There will be only 4-5 formats that we would be expanding in and these would be mainly in the fine dining area.” K.S. Narayanan, CEO, Pan India Food Solutions, commented.

The company is scaling up formats such as Spaghetti Kitchen, Copper Chimney, Noodle Bar along with Gelato, its Italian frozen desert brand.

Being the master franchise for The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, the company will experiment with different formats ranging from kiosks to full-fledged cafes and add six new outlets (currently it has 21 cafes). “There could be bigger outlets as well as kiosks depending upon the place we get. Coffee is a tough business as it is local in nature and the challenge is to offer customisation,” said Narayanan.

As a format, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf turned profitable more than a year ago when food was added to the menu. “Today, food comprises nearly 35 per cent of our offerings,” he adds.