1. ON A FAST 'FOOD' TRACK
Samar Qureshi, director, Fast Trax Foods Pvt. Ltd. has the credit of building one of the most successful, Indian, fast -food empires. Braving the biggest recession since 1930, successfully catering the Commonwealth Games and managing a sale 56 per cent based solely on positive word of mouth, Qureshi has managed to pull off the unimaginable going from two outlets to 22 stores in just a few years. Having spent most of his formative years in Australia, Qureshi came back to India with the mission to begin Fast Trax.
"In Australia, I worked part-time as a member of a popular fast-food chain's crew. That was my first taste of the fast-food industry. I remember being completely fascinated by the concept of a 'quick service restaurant (QSR)'. The gap between a proper QSR format restaurant and traditional Indian flavoured one was vastly apparent in India. It was in 2005 when I decided to diversify and set up a QSR format restaurant," he expresses. Fast Trax is one of the first fast-food chains to be present at Delhi's leading schools. They have been a part of three international events in Delhi since their inception.
"At the CWG event held recently in Delhi, we set a new Indian record of selling over 6,00,000 fresh burgers in the shortest time period ever," adds Qureshi. But the road to success is never that easy and one has to face challenges head-on.
Talking about the challenges that his venture faced, Qureshi adds, "We knew right from the beginning that establishing an all-Indian fast-food brand with international items on our menu, in a market dominated by foreign MNC players would not be an easy task. First, we faced the problem of establishing ourselves as a brand. Acceptability was also another big challenge where people were used to really high standards. Our aim was to bring out better quality product, so that it is acceptable by our consumer," he concludes.
