FAST FORWARD

Slow cooking speeds up for Sandwich Chef.

Sandwich Chefs, famous for its classic 14-hour slow roasted pork and

beef rolls, is launching in service stations around Australia.

The food franchise chain has opened its first restaurant in Northam, Western Australia in partnership with Fresh Trading Co. The partners aim to roll out 14 stores this year.

Inside Franchise Business spoke with Sandwich Chefs national marketing manager Ollie Mann about the expansion.

WHY SERVICE STATIONS?

We recognised a need to diversify the portfolio a little, and the brand offering. We’re in 53 shopping centres across the country and even in the current economic climate they are great stores. We have shopping centre sites, kiosks, and inline stores. But we want to offer premium quality food at all sorts of locations.

Others are moving into service stations, GYG (Guzman Y Guzman) for instance, and service stations are now becoming places to grab a coffee.

We want to try and maintain the same product. We’ve already introduced a new time period, but for the service stations the breakfast menu has been diversified. It’s something we can trial and test, and then roll out in other stores.

WHY FRESH TRADING CO?

It’s a pretty ambitious business and we share the same sort of vision, to be an honest, transparent brand, offering premium quality.

We’re trying to work out a real partnership. Typically a customer filling up goes inside and is then met with a couple of brands where they can order, and it’s all treated as two separate entities. With Fresh Trading Co, the customer might redeem points at Sandwich Chefs.

WHAT ABOUT TECHNOLOGY?

We’ve adopted technology early with online ordering and delivery. Online ordering in our stores now is primarily a catering offer but in the future service station customers will be able to order at the pump and their food will be ready. It’s a time pressured environment and our product is a slow roast, so we have to try and reduce the time.

HOW WILL YOU DISTINGUISH THE BRAND FROM OTHER GRAB AND GO OPTIONS?

Focusing on trying to build brand trust and loyalty. It will be seamless for the customer. The goal is to get them wanting to fill up at Fresh Trading because they know Sandwich Chefs is there. We’re looking at a potential loyalty card. We’ll be participating in the same marketing campaigns.

IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS...

We’ll definitely continue into shopping centres, we’re in a mix of A and B grade centres. We’ll keep refining the shopping centre model so it works.

In two years we’ll see much bigger regional expansion; right now Wagga is our number one store.

All the stores will have a brand refresh, which we’ve already started. We will expand the service station footprint and drive-through, and potentially the high street.

This is rapid expansion, the fire we need to grow the brand.