Started with ₹ 30,000 and became ₹ 860 crore food Brand – Wow Momos Success Story
Wow! Momo, India’s fastest growing momo chain is started by classmates Sagar Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai, who started selling steamed momos from their 6 by 6 kiosk in Springdale Spencer in 2008. The Food Company started from a garage in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
WOW! Momo’s first kitchen was a 200 square foot room and they took the raw material on credit from a local grocery store to get things started.
The first kitchen started with only a single table and two part-time chefs who worked on a nominal salary.
Wow! Momo, an Indian chain of fast-food restaurants started with a meagre investment of ₹30,000 and now stands at a stupendous net worth of ₹860 crores.
Sagar Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai are alumni of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. Wow! Momo specializing in momos, a dumpling popular in India, Nepal, and Tibet. The company is headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal.
After investment by Tiger Global Management of ₹130cr, the food company was valued at over ₹860 crores In 2019.
The initial stores were kiosks inside Spencer’s Retail in Gachtala Tollygunge in south Kolkata and Big Bazaar hypermarkets Kolkata on rent for a month at 18 percent revenue share on 29 August 2008, which paved a way for opening food outlets in commercial locations like malls and tech parks.
In the initial days, Sagar Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai approach every person entering the Spencers store and ask them to sample the momos.
They would wear a Wow! Momo T-shirt. Over the next two years, They open similar kiosks in a various commercial location, tech parks, malls and hypermarkets across the city.
WOW! Momo has expanded to Kolkata, Noida, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Chennai, Lucknow, Delhi, Bengaluru, Cuttack, Puri, Kochi, Bhubaneswar, and Kanpur.
WOW! Momo has over 200 outlets across 13 cities in India as of October 2018. Pan-fried momos became their USP. Serving delicious momos is the brand’s agenda.
They offer 16 different varieties of momos for vegetarians and Non-vegetarians. For vegetarians, WOW! Momo offerings include corn and corn and cheese, among others.
Non-vegetarians they offer chicken and cheese, chicken, prawn, and schezwan. They offer chocolate momos as well!
With an investment of Rs 14 lakh, Sagar Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai came up with their first independent outlet in 2010 at Sector V in Salt Lake, Kolkata where they began has now expanded to 1,200 sq ft.
Wow! Momo launched an outlet at Phoenix Market City in Bengaluru in 2011. This is the first branch out of Kolkata.
They have not looked back ever since. Today, the Food company boasts of having 130 outlets in the country.
The food company has 900 people managing the storefronts and over 700 people employed in backend productions.
The team follows a standardized recipe and cooking methodology. All the Wow! Momo outlets are owned by the company.
Momo has been launched include Delhi, Kochi Bengaluru, and Pune. Wow! Momo won the Best Food & Agri Products’ and also the ‘Best SME of the Year Award in 2013.
The fast-food restaurant’s chain plans to expand rapidly in Delhi NCR, Kolkata, and Bengaluru during this year.
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The company also plans a small expansion planned in Chennai. It is also looking at entering new markets such as Mumbai, Hyderabad in the next fiscal year.