Food Concepts targets 800 fast food stores across Africa in expansion drive
Leading Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) operator in West Africa, Food Concepts Plc, as part of its expansion drive is aiming at having between 700 to 800 fast food stores spread across the African Continent by the year 2024.
According to the Managing Director of Food Concepts, David Butler, the company has enormous opportunities to grow and expand across the continent.
“There is the opportunity to grow and we want to expand our food stores by 20 stores across Nigeria so that by the end of this year there will be 207 stores in Nigeria. We are also looking at growing our food stores to between 700 and 800 by 2024 on the continent and we are confident that we will hit those numbers, the next phase for us is looking at which next francophone or anglophone country to enter and when we want to do that,” he tells norvanreports in an exclusive interview.
Quizzed if the company’s expansion strategy into new markets on the continent involves outright acquisition or a merger with existing fast food businesses, Mr Butler averred Food Concepts prefers to establish its presence in a new market from scratch and work its way to the top, adding that mergers or outright acquisitions can be considered by the company.
“I think it’s economically viable to start from scratch but that doesn’t rule out that the opportunity to buy or merge, there is a lot of efficiency that when you find multiple brands and you can merge especially in terms of supply chains. But I think we are happy to grow the business ourselves because we have very experienced people who can do that and I mean growing from retail is what we have done best,” he said.
He added that Food Concepts is focused on ensuring that its customers are satisfied with its food products, providing them with the food flavours they love.
“The consumers tell us what they want and it’s our job to give them what they want and so we are focused on ensuring that our consumers are satisfied and that our products are great for consumers,” he stated.
Touching on the impact of the Covid pandemic on its business operations, Mr Butler averred the company was minimally affected by the pandemic asserting that Food Concepts continued on the path of growth amid the pandemic, paying staff in full and on time and even employed more staff.
“We have always been self-funded and because of that when other companies were suffering financially due to covid as result of debts taken, we continued on the path of growth, throughout the covid period we never cut off any staff and paid every staff in full and on-time every month. We even employed more people and so Food Concepts was in a good shape during the Covid,“ he stated.
Established in 2001, Food Concepts is the leading Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) operator in West Africa. The business is focused on the mass market and operates three of Nigeria’s best known, most loved and fastest growing brands, Chicken Republic, PieXpress and Chop Box across 25 Nigerian states, as well as in Ghana, and an online delivery business growing at over 140% year on year.
Led by a best-in-class and experienced management team, and with support from DPI, Food Concepts has grown rapidly from 58 stores in 2015 to over 180 stores today disrupting the Nigerian QSR sector with an affordable value proposition and demonstrating exceptional financial and operational performance across economic cycles.
Food Concepts maintains a strong commitment to operating responsibly as a business, focused on developing local talent, and driving diversity and inclusion across the company. Since 2015, it has created around 3,300 jobs directly and many more in its supply chain, which is 99% localised.
Women comprise 51% of the workforce and 57% of the management team. The business was cited at the 2021 G7 summit as a leading success story in the development of women leaders.
ACA and DPI will work together to support Food Concepts on its next phase of growth and help drive the business’ regional expansion strategy.
