McDonald’s To Open Veggie Outlets Next To Vaishno Devi, Golden Temple

New Delhi: In 1996, when McDonald’s entered India for the first time, it did the unthinkable, eschewing its trademark beef burgers. Sixteen years on, it is about to do the equivalent of blasphemous in the fast food trade by opening only-veg burger joints.

The world’s second-largest restaurant chain will open its first vegetarian-only McDonald’s restaurant at the foothills of the Vaishno Devi shrine at Katra in Jammu & Kashmir, next year.

“We see a huge potential (for veg outlets) as, by nature, Indians are religious,” says Vikram Bakshi, who manages McDonald’s restaurants in east and north India as a joint venture partner of the US giant.

After Vaishno Devi, McDonald’s plans to open another pure vegetarian outlet near the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

McDonald’s has 33,000 outlets across 119 countries, serving 69 million customers everyday, but nowhere else has McDonald’s been so flexible with its menu as in India.

Worldwide, the beef-based Big Mac is McDonald’s signature dish, but in India vegetable products account for half of its menu and sales. The indigenously developed popular McAloo Tikki burger accounts for 25% of the company’s total sales. And it plans more vegetarian items in its menu.

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