We Indians, love our spices, makhani sauce, aloo tikki, and everything desi, and combining these with our favourite American fast food burgers is truly a blessing in disguise. Kabir Jeet Singh is the man who has made it possible with his fast-food chain, Burger Singh, which started in 2014 and sells fusion burgers, fried, and other sides. Kabir is the co-founder and CEO of Burger Singh.
Education
Kabir Jeet Singh went on to pursue his Master’s degree in financial strategy from the University of Oxford and also has an MBA from the University of Birmingham.
How Kabir started Burger Singh
It was during his time as a student, living in UK that he worked as a part-time employee for the evening shift at a burger shop and the night shift at a bar to make ends meet. Being an Indian by origin, Kabir felt the lack of spices and flavour in the food and started figuring out how he could bring in tastes he truly craved, he decided to experiment with a few spices. He added a spice blend to the minced meat before cooking the burger patty. And it was over-time a hit among the customers.
“I would pick up packs of Shan Spices from a neighbouring store and add them to the burgers. Soon they started becoming popular with my colleagues and I started making for them as well,” said in an exclusive interview with Your Story.
The “fusion” burgers became popular quickly and were included in the burger shop’s weekend menu. He then started selling his burgers at university cookouts. This is when he obtained the name “Burger Singh”. He had no idea that it would become the name of his restaurant franchise in India within a few years.
After returning to India in 2008, and learning about the logistics part of running a business, he started his own venture in 2014 in Gurgaon. Setting up Burger Singh was very different from making burgers being a student. There were a lot of ups and downs.
Kabir first focussed sourcing materials and for vegetarian products, he tied up with a vendor in Panvel, Mumbai, and for non-vegetarian products, he tied up with a vendor in Hyderabad. He said to Your Story, “I traveled across Punjab and Bihar and tied up with major spice blenders in the country to develop different blends.” The Rajma Burger achieved perfection after more than 170 trials.
Revenue of Burger Singh
The setting up of one outlet cost Rs 30 lakh and then expanded to two more stores. The smaller stores helped them save money as the rentals were at Rs 60,000 and the outlets had started making close to Rs 10 lakh in revenue.
Burger Singh started with an investment of around Rs 40 lakhs as per Mint reports and raised funding from several investors. The revenue has seen went from Rs 29.1 crores in FY 22 to Rs 57.92 crores in FY 23. They received funding in July 2022 marking the evaluation at Rs 200 crores as per Live Mint reports.
With over 100 outlets in more than 50 cities, Kabir’s Burger Singh has emerged as the 3rd highest burger delivery place in the country.
