New Delhi, May 22: The Poddar Heritage Group (PHG), promoters of brands like Gillette, Duracell, Hettich, Singer and Get Lionel, is venturing into a new business. The group is planning a chain of restaurants under a new company called Pulse Foods India Private Limited.

To be managed by Akshay Poddar, director of PHG, the restaurants will initially come up in the country’s northern region. To start with, Poddar is launching a restaurant at Noida, near Delhi.

“We want to open eight restaurants by March 2006. These will include one in Delhi and two each in Ludhiana, Mumbai and Chennai. We will serve both vegetarian and non-vegetarian cuisine,” said Neeraj Jain, chief executive officer of Pulse Foods India.

While Calcutta is on the company’s radar and the city will see a restaurant by the middle of next year or in early 2007, east is not a big focus area for the group.

While Bengal is traditionally associated with food lovers, a research conducted by RMG David for Pulse Foods India had a different tale to tell.

According to Jain, the research showed that unlike other cities where spending power of the middle-class has grown enormously, Calcutta is not really the best place for restaurants. The consumption pattern is skewed towards fine-dining restaurants or dhabas”.

The group has committed an investment of Rs 10 crore to 8-10 restaurants and has earmarked a sum of Rs 1.5-2 crore for advertising and marketing. Talking about revenues, Jain said, “We don’t look forward to any profit for the next three years but hope to clock a sales revenue of Rs 7-8 crore in one year.”

Pulse Foods has plans to tap overseas markets in the fourth quarter of 2006-07. It is targeting destinations with non-resident Indian population like London, Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore. However, the group is yet to carry out the feasibility study.