Jamshed Daboo of Trent awarded the Most Admired Food & Grocery Personality of the Year at the 6th Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards

13 Dec 2012

India's most prestigious accolades for food service and grocery retailers - the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards were held last evening at a glittering ceremony in Mumbai at the Renaissance Hotel. Jamshed Daboo, CEO, Trent Hypermarkets was honoured with the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Food & Grocery Personality Of The Year. An individual who personally and professionally embodies risk-taking, innovation, strategising, courage, and invention Daboo joined Trent as COO in 2010 to head Star Bazaar hypermarkets. From seven stores with sales of Rs 274 crore in 2009-10 Daboo took the store count to 15 in 2011-12 with sales of Rs 650 crore.

Niren Choudhary, President of Yum! Restaurants India, a subsidiary of Yum! Restaurants, was awarded the Food Service Personality of the Year. In addition to leading two powerhouse brands in India- KFC and Pizza Hut, Niren has been instrumental in bringing in the Mexican inspired fast food format, Taco Bell, to India.

Jubilant Foodworks, India’s largest and fastest growing food service company, with a network of 515 Domino’s Pizza stores walked away with the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Food Service Group of the Year. The company is the market leader in the organized pizza market with a 55 percent market share and 70 percent + share in the pizza home delivery segment in India. Domino’s Pizza also won the award IMAGES Most Admired Food Service Chain of the Year: Quick Service Restaurant - Foreign Origin.

The Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Restaurant Chain of the Year: Dine-in went to Main Land China. Annual retail sales of Mainland China grew by 35 percent during October 2011 and September, 2012. Needless to say it was the most favoured by the jury.

Naturals Ice Cream was the choice of the jury for the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Foodservice Retailer of the Year: Ice cream & Dessert Parlours. Annual retail sales during October, 2011 to September, 2012 grew by 25 percent over previous year and the highest amongst all the finalists.

In the innovation category Beer Café won the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Food Service Retail Innovation of the Year. Pour Your Own Beer concept by The Beer Café offers a unique beer drinking experience where consumers can pour ice cold beer directly from tap through RFID-activated beer cards. Sale through this innovation contributes 36 percent of store’s total sale.

The Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for Most Admired Foodservice Retailer of the Year: Quick Service Restaurant: Indian Origin went to Goli Vada Pav which saw the maximum growth in number of retail outlets amongst all nominees. Annual retail sale from October 2011 to September 2012 grew by 84 percent over previous year.

In the Food and Grocery segment, Nature’s Basket bagged the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Food & Grocery Retailer of the Year: Speciality. Retail outlets of Nature’s Basket grew by 64 percent and retail space grew by 75 percent during October, 2011 to September, 2012. Same store sale grew by 26 percent. A clear winner among the nominees.

Nature’s Basket also won the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Food and Grocery retail chain of the year: National Supermarkets. Started in 2005 as a single fresh food store, the group today has morphed into a 23 store chain of premium Gourmet Stores strategically located at high street locations in Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, and Bangalore.

The ceremony also incorporated a special segment of honours from Images Group and the Forum of Indian Food Importers (FIFI). Five traditional retailers who’ve created and nurtured consumption in the imported foods category through innovation and specialization were honoured for their contribution. Atul Agrawal, Noida Supermarket Pvt. Ltd.; Jaswant Singh, Prakash Bakery Jalandhar; Sohil Gala, Café Galleries Mumbai; Vallab Bhai Dedhia, Willington Super Stores, Mumbai; and Biju Thomas, Thomas Bakery, Bangalore were the FIFI awardees.

This year saw the addition of another chapter to the prestigious platform - India Food Service Forum - an interactive knowledge and business platform for the professionals in industry. IFSF has been shaped under the aegis of the NRAI who as a part of the steering committee ensure that the agenda is relevant to the restaurateurs’ business needs.

The other awardees of the 6th Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards were:

Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Foodservice Retailer of the Year: Cafes & Juice Bars: Baker Street

Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the most admired food service retailer of the year: Pubs & Bars: Underdoggs Sports Bar & Grill

Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the most admired restaurant of the year: Dine-in: Smoke House Deli

Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the most admired food service retail launch of the year: Dunkin’ Donuts

Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the most admired food & grocery retail chain of the year: Regional Supermarkets: Nilgiri’s

Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the most admired food & grocery retailer of the year: Independent or mini chain: Haiko

Cola Golden Spoon Award for the most admired food & grocery retailer of the year: private label development: HyperCity

Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the most admired food & grocery retail chain of the year: Large format: Auchan


Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards were launched in the year 2008 to acknowledge the rising importance of modern food and grocery retail, and its crucial role in the evolution of effective marketing and distribution of food and grocery brands in the country.

The awards are honours not just based on statistics solely; they award risk taking, adventure, innovation, ideas, geographical expansion and especially, profitable strategies.

Food & Grocery Forum India aims to develop and nurture the food retail business in India through industry engagement, debates, knowledge workshops and recognition. The objective is to not just support in thought, but also enable businesses to get together and develop workable partnerships.

The Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards 2012 selection process involved inviting entries from the nation’s leading foodservice and food and grocery retailers across multiple categories. In their official entries, contenders were asked to provide data relating to their performance for the year 2011-12 across three main parameters – retail expansion, business performance, and the same store sale growth percentage during the period 1st October, 2011 to 30th September, 2012

This year, IMAGES received an exceptional quantum and depth of data from the nominees, which helped to evaluate their performance more accurately and transparently.

All submissions for Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards 2012 were independently judged by a jury comprising some of the most prominent names in the local, regional, and international food service and grocery industry, including:

Atul Singh, President, India & South West Asia, Coca Cola India

Amit Lohani, Convenor, FIFI

Siraj Chaudhary, Chairman, Cargill Foods

Amitabh Taneja, CMD, Images Group

Samir Kuckreja, President, NRAI

Rashmi Uday Singh, Food Writer, Author, TV Host

Anuj Puri, Chairman and Country Head, JLL

Arvind Singhal, President, Technopak Advisors

Professor Piyush Sinha, Chairperson, Centre for Retailing, IIM(A)

Harish Bijoor, Brand - Expert and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Kishore Bhatija, CEO, Inorbit Malls

Vishal Mirchandani, CEO-Retail, Brigade Group

Jyoti Bhasin, Country Head- India and Middle East, NFS


-Nivedita Jayaram Pawar
niveditapawar@imagesgroup.in