Thai Beverage Plc (ThaiBev) is confident enough in the country's restaurant market to spend more than 400 million baht to expand its food business this year.
Nongnuch Buranasetkul, the company's senior vice-president, said the entire outlay is to open 40 restaurants this year, up from 24 eateries opened last year.
Of the total budget, 250 million baht is allocated for the Oishi brand, with the remainder used for the expansion of KFC under QSR Asia, one of the operators of KFC in Thailand, and Food of Asia, the operator of So asean Cafe & Restaurant, Man Fu Yuan Kitchen, MX cakes & bakery, Cafe Chilli and Hide & Seek.
"The company keeps investing because it believes the food industry will be better this year," said Mrs Nongnuch.
In addition, she said opening new restaurants increases the company's opportunities to continue learning about customer behaviour.
"During the pandemic, we put much effort into studying consumer behaviour," said Mrs Nongnuch.
"We thought at first consumers would resume their normal lives after the government relaxed the tight lockdown measures, but they have not."
She said the company has to monitor consumer behaviour, which continues to change all the time.
ThaiBev's business is closely related to retail, hospitality and services, which have all been vulnerable during the pandemic, said Mrs Nongnuch.
Staff also have to change their mindset to be flexible when working, quickly adapting to changes, she said.
The company recently launched Oishi BIZ TO RO, a fast-casual concept that mixes quick-service restaurants and dine-in, at Central Ayutthaya.
Another 3-5 new branches are scheduled to open this year to test the market response.
"Oishi BIZ TO RO, a life restaurant model, will be opened largely at locations outside retail complexes to balance our portfolio and solve pain points if the restaurant business is subject to a lockdown again, similar to July last year," Mrs Nongnuch said.
"If it works, Oishi BIZ TO RO is another restaurant model to help speed our expansion in the future, particularly via the franchise system."
ThaiBev also plans to open a new KFC digital lifestyle store this year after opening the initial branch at Siam Center last year.
The company changed its restaurant design, allocating more space for takeaway and delivery instead of dine-in to generate more sales.
There are 23 food brands under ThaiBev.
The food business contributed 11.3 billion baht in revenue to ThaiBev in fiscal 2021, starting on Oct 1, 2020, and ending Sept 30, 2021.
According to Kasikorn Research Center, the full-service restaurant business is expected to grow by 5.0-9.9% in 2022, up from 139-144 billion baht in 2021.