Brands
Rajiv Singh joins Haldiram’s as Vice President – Head of Marketing & Growth for its QSR Business.
Noida: Haldiram’s has tapped a seasoned brand builder to sharpen its quick-service ambitions. Rajiv Singh has joined the snacks-to-sweets giant as vice president and head of marketing and growth for its QSR business, signalling a sharper, more aggressive play in organised food retail at home and overseas.
Singh announced the move on LinkedIn, calling Haldiram’s “an extraordinary legacy in Indian food and hospitality” and adding that he looks forward to “driving brand-led growth, accelerating the QSR business, and building scalable, consumer-first marketing engines in partnership with the leadership team.” He described himself as “grateful for the trust” and “excited about the journey ahead.”
The appointment places a 15-year marketing veteran at the helm of one of India’s most recognisable food brands as it seeks to deepen its presence in quick-service restaurants, digital commerce and international markets. Singh’s mandate covers brand strategy, growth marketing and expansion of the QSR footprint across India and overseas.
Before Haldiram’s, Singh spent nearly four years at ITC Limited as head of growth and marketing for ITC Food Tech, where he worked on building cloud-kitchen domains and digital-first food ventures. His tenure saw influencer-led campaigns, café launches and celebrity-backed digital promotions for ITC Sunfeast Baked Creations, including collaborations with cricketer Shreyanka Patil and brand integrations with RCB players on delivery platforms such as Swiggy.
Earlier, Singh served as head of brand marketing and strategic alliances at Happilo International, steering D2C expansion, portfolio management, new product launches, ecommerce growth and high-visibility sports partnerships, notably the brand’s title sponsorship association with Rajasthan Royals. Campaigns during this period leaned heavily on influencer marketing, digital content and cross-platform brand collaborations.
His longest corporate stretch came at Blackberrys Menswear, where he rose from brand manager to manager retail marketing over three and a half years. There, Singh worked on brand identity changeovers, seasonal launches and trade shows, and helped grow the company from Rs 443 crore to Rs 1,000 crore within 30 months, according to his profile. He launched Knitalia Khaki, billed as India’s first 100 per cent cotton knitted trousers, and created the intellectual property “India Khaki Week,” a campaign credited with boosting khaki sales by 339 per cent and increasing footfall by 173 per cent. Key partnerships included the film *Race 3* as style partner featuring Salman Khan, the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride and multiple regional campaigns. He also oversaw the creation of sub-brands such as Blackberrys HOB, Blackberrys Casuale and Urban Blackberrys.
Singh’s earlier career spans agency and retail heavyweights. At Cheil Worldwide, he worked as associate account director handling retail visual merchandising for Samsung India Electronics across north India, managing operations in more than 18,000 stores including over 300 Samsung cafés and 250 Samsung digital plazas, and supervising teams of 350-plus associates during flagship device launches from the Galaxy S and Note series to the Z line. Before that, at Spencer’s Retail, he served as assistant manager marketing overseeing eastern Uttar Pradesh operations, managing in-store communication across nearly 3.93 lakh square feet and conducting the retailer’s first third-party funded “Shopping Carnival” campaign. The region, his profile notes, was EBITDA positive during his tenure.
Across roles, Singh’s experience cuts across FMCG, retail, fashion, consumer durables, digital, ecommerce and D2C, with competencies ranging from brand building and media buying to influencer management, visual merchandising, store design, capacity planning and intellectual-property creation.
For Haldiram’s, the hire is less a routine executive shuffle and more a statement of intent. With organised QSR competition intensifying and consumer attention fragmenting across screens and storefronts, the company is betting on marketing muscle and digital fluency to stay ahead. Singh arrives with a résumé built on scale, speed and spectacle. The brief is clear: grow fast, grow wide and make the brand impossible to ignore.
Brands
Dunkin’ Donuts to exit India as Jubilant FoodWorks ends 15-year franchise deal
The quick service restaurant giant is ending a 15-year franchise partnership with the American doughnut chain, even as it renews its Domino’s agreement for another 15 years
NOIDA: Dunkin’ is done in India. Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the country’s leading quick service restaurant operator, has decided not to renew its franchise agreement with the American coffee and doughnut chain, and will wind down its Indian stores in a phased manner before December 31, 2026, bringing a 15-year partnership to a quiet, loss-laden close.
The decision, approved by JFL’s board on March 30, 2026, ends a relationship that began with a Multiple Unit Development Franchise Agreement signed on February 24, 2011. JFL will now evaluate and undertake what it described in a regulatory filing as the “rationalisation and/or cessation of certain operations and/or sale, transfer or disposal of assets and/or assignment or transfer of franchise rights,” all in consultation with Dunkin’s brand owners and strictly within the terms of the original agreement.
The numbers tell the story bluntly. In the financial year 2024-25, Dunkin’ India posted a revenue of Rs 37 crore against a loss of Rs 19 crore — a haemorrhage that was always going to test the patience of a parent company recording revenues of Rs 6,104 crore and a profit of Rs 194 crore in the same period. Doughnuts, it turns out, were never going to move the needle.
The contrast with JFL’s handling of its other marquee franchise could hardly be sharper. Even as it walks away from Dunkin’, the company has just doubled down on Domino’s, signing a fresh Master Franchise Agreement on March 31, 2026, granting it exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino’s Pizza stores in India for 15 years, with an option to renew for a further 10.
JFL, incorporated in 1995 and promoted by the Bharatia family, operates a network of more than 3,500 stores across six markets — India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Its portfolio includes Domino’s and Popeyes on the global side, and two home-grown brands: Hong’s Kitchen and COFFY, a café brand in Turkey.
For Dunkin’, India was always a stretch. The brand never quite cracked the cultural code in a market where filter coffee and chai command fierce loyalty and where the doughnut remains, at best, an occasional indulgence rather than a daily habit. Fifteen years, mounting losses and a parent with better things to spend its capital on was always going to be a difficult equation to solve.
The doughnut has had its last day. The pizza, however, is staying.
