rido adityawan

Living the delicious dream

There’s fried chicken Kentucky style, and there’s fried chicken the Javanese way. Rido Nurul Adityawan knows all about the latter, and in the past six years he has built a business, Ayam Gepuk Pak Gembus, that has impressed food industry followers with its lightning-fast growth. Ayam Gepuk has amassed more than 700 franchisees already, and not just in Indonesia, but also in Malaysia and Singapore.

“I’ve always been an admirer of the KFC business model, but I thought that Indonesian fried chicken could also be successful - just because it’s so delicious,” smiles Magelang, Central Java-born Adityawan. Coming from a humble background, he is a born entrepreneur who started his business from scratch. “From the beginning, my dream was to become successful in business,” the State Polytechnic of Semarang graduate says. “I was an only child, and I thought that if not me, who else was going to make my parents proud?”

Adityawan’s journey started with winning an entrepreneurship prize. He received Rp 35 million, which he invested in a catfish breeding venture. In 2013, Adityawan launched Ayam Gepuk. He started with a market stall in West Jakarta. A customer, Dani Saputra, who later became Adityawan’s CoCEO, told him that his chicken was so tasty that he should try franchising it. The rest, as they say, is history.

“In the next five years, my target is to do an IPO on the Indonesian Stock Exchange,” Adityawan says. “And after 10 years, I hope to have three or four more culinary businesses that are on the same level as Ayam Gepuk.”