$1.8m outlet opens
THE King of burgers is expanding their franchise in the country, changing the tide of providing world-class products and services in Fiji.
Burger King has now opened its sixth outlet at the Challenge Plaza in Laucala Beach Estate, catering to people between Suva and Nakasi.
The $1.8 million outlet is a great addition to the ever expanding catalogue of stores at the complex.
According to general manager Akash Narsey, they knew that Extra Supermarket was opening up at the complex which had a lot of customers.
“But I think overall when you look at the Laucala Beach area there was a lot of potential here but when you are looking at commercial standpoint which was sort of relative to the area itself.
“So if you are around this Laucala Beach Estate area you would have to go more towards the Nakasi area or come more towards the city.
“I think one of the things that has happened to Challenge Plaza here in Laucala Beach is that it’s become sort of a hub where a lot of people can just do a lot of their things here, such as get a haircut, pharmacy needs are here, shopping, food needs, shoe shopping, everything is pretty much here now.
“Why would there be a need to go anywhere else.”
Mr Narsey said the building of this particular restaurant had been a challenge.
“Obviously not just the pandemic but in terms of the port congestion, shipping congestion and in terms of material shortages as well.
“So that’s been a bit of an issue in terms of trying to get equipment across to sort of have this restaurant up and running.
“But for the most part we have done OK, but I think if you look at what’s happening globally so obviously increase in fuel prices means our shipping is more expensive.”
The general manager said the increase in wheat prices because of the war in Ukraine and Russia was having a global impact.
“So even though you might think that it is a very localised war that is happening in Europe, it has been having an impact globally.
“And we are getting information from Burger King on how the world is at war and how the shipping congestion is affecting everyone now.”
Mr Narsey added with the war between Ukraine and Russia cooking oil supplies were affected.
He said these were supplied to the potato fryers out of Europe and because there was not enough oil so to speak they actually had to reduce their finished product which they could sell to their customers.
“There is an impact everywhere and that is a challenge that we are going to face in the next couple of years in my opinion.
“If there is a couple of percentage points in differences then you can absorb those costs but for certain things such as milk prices which has gone up.
“When you start seeing things which have 20 per cent increase, 15 per cent increase then you have to sort of say that there is no way you could absorb that.
“But what we are trying to do is when we are placing our orders we are trying to place it at a point where we are leveraging our total orders and we are able to sort of bring full container loads.
“So we are trying to ensure that the increase is not as much but it is a very tricky scenario to be in,” he said.
The pandemic initially had impacted the chain and Mr Narsey said they did not know whether they would be open or close.
He said the biggest problems which they faced was when they had to order their products and doing this months in advance.
“So if the border or all of a sudden an outbreak occurred today and if tomorrow everything shuts down then that order is still coming through there is no way to stop it.
“And then the opposite effect happens as well whereby we are trying to limit the amount of orders we are bringing in and then all of a sudden business uptakes.
“So we might be able to place an order today with our supplier but that would still take a month to arrive.”
The outlet in Challenge Plaza has a seating capacity of 90 people with 35 staff memebrs employed.
Mr Narsey shared the expansion plans for the restaurant chain as the Lautoka outlet was in its design phase.
“We found the location in Drasa Avenue, we feel would be a great location for a drive through store, so that we are looking at the middle of next year depending on all going well.
“The other store we are talking about is in Suva which we want to be a drive through store.
“We haven’t confirmed a place as of yet but if all goes well we will be trying to target by the end of next year or early 2024.”
He said the company wanted to focus more on their brand and less on their competitors.
“We feel that when we focus on what we are good at we tend to do better. If we start worrying about our competitors then we are reacting rather than being proactive and I think as a business we want to be more proactive than reactive,” he said.
According to a statement from the company Burger King Fiji has already made a substantial investment of close to $19m in setting up its six restaurants in a span of seven years.
It said this investment also included a state-of-the- art cold storage facility within the Motibhai Business Park in Legalega, Nadi.
The company also employs close to 250 people with more employment opportunities all set to open up with the expansion of restaurants in other towns and cities around Fiji.