Potato burger highest-grossing menu item For McDonald's India

McDonald's Corp. is staking its future in India on burgers made from mashed potatoes, peas and spices. Sumil Mittal says it's a good bet.

Mittal, 19, sits beneath the golden arches at a McDonald's in Ambala, a small town 125 miles north of New Delhi. He's eating the vegetarian McAloo Tikki sandwich, with French fries and a Coke.

"It's a change from the food that we eat everyday at home, and inexpensive," said Mittal, a student at Mukand Lal National College in neighboring Yamunanagar. "It tastes good."

The mashed-potato sandwich is the highest- grossing item on the menu. It costs 50 cents in a nation where the World Bank says 456 million people live on $1.25 a day or less.

McDonald's, the world's biggest restaurant company, is expanding in India as a middle class predicted to grow tenfold by 2025 develops a taste for Western-style fast food. Sales are up 30 percent during the first nine months of the year, led by growth in smaller cities, said Vikram Bakshi, managing director of McDonald's India.

There are 170 outlets in India, and the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company and its local partners will invest $108 million to add 120 during the next three years, Bakshi said.