Location Analysis for a Food Service Company

Travel Food Services is India’s largest and fastest growing food service company, which brings the choicest spread of international, regional cuisines and gourmet food to today’s travelers by having multiple brands under one roof on airports, highways & railway stations.

The company wanted to expand its business on Delhi-Chandigarh highway by opening an organized food court, and therefore wanted to conduct a market research to understand the customer flow, footfalls, key hubs and competition presence in terms of restaurants/dhabas & restaurants chains.

The project was a combination of 4 studies, as follows:

• Restaurants Profiling: Capturing detailed report of the infrastructure & facilities, cuisines available, cost for two, GPS Coordinates
• Petrol Pump profiling: Capturing brand, facilities, distance from nearby eateries, GPS coordinates
• Restaurants Audits: Checking the facilities, hygiene, ambience & experience
• Consumer Surveys: Identifying the frequency & purpose of visits, consumption patterns, considerations & expectations

 Approach:

• To provide a micro level study, Delhi-Chandigarh highway was divided into multiple small stretches.
• Capturing all relevant data of the restaurants/dhabas/eateries like car parking, ambiance, washrooms, menu offering, service quality, food quality, bill value etc.
• Shortlisting ‘must-have’ and ‘good-to-have’ parameters, to segment the restaurants & other eateries.
• GPS coordinate mapping of all important landmarks, retail points & restaurants/dhabas on the highway.

 Outcome:

• GPS coordinate tracking of all locations, retail points & restaurants/dhabas on the highway to map out the entire highway stretch to evaluate & rank various feasible sites for the proposed concept.
• Categorization of restaurants/eateries present on each stretch mapped based on various shortlisted parameters and identifying the unfulfilled need of the consumer or gap in the market.
• Competition intensity in terms of brand vs unbranded formats.
• Market sizing of eateries based on customer footfalls and average billing across various formats on each stretch mapped
• Understanding consumer behavior like purpose & frequency of visits, considerations for choosing an outlet, their satisfaction levels and future expectations.
• Recommendations with respect to feasible location, ideal restaurant size, menu offering and pricing strategy.