Find out more about Rozzi's Italian Canteen and its surprising long term plans to grow its network
QSR Media sat down with Dean Salomone, director at Rozzi's Italian Canteen, to talk about their long term plans to grow from a five-outlet franchise to a network of 70-90 stores nationwide.
Rozzi’s Italian Canteen claims to be the 'collaborative outcome of seasoned food & business operators who have combined their past 25 years’ industry experience to create this exciting new fast casual dining offer'. The brand sometimes pops up in shopping centres, and shopping strips, bringing its "Real Italian" food to Australians.
QSR Media: Can you tell us more about the Rozzi's rollout of new stores?
Dean Salomone: For the next 2 year period we are focussing on the Eastern Sea Board for our new store rolll out strategy. We expect to open further stores in Victoria and in Queensland with our Master Franchise partner during this period.
NSW is definitely part of our roll out plan and we are currently in discussions with some quality food & beverage operators about securing the rights to NSW & expect to make an announcment shortly in regards to this.
QSR Media: How many more stores can your customers expect from your brand?
Dean Salomone: In the next 2 years we are targetting approx a further 10 - 12 stores throughout Victoria, NSW & QLD. Longer term we feel the brand & the marketplace has the capability to sustain anything from 70 - 90 stores nationally.
QSR Media: What makes a particular location attractive to your brand?
Dean Salomone: For Rozzi's its all about our ability to showcase our high quality presented products & store design - so as long as we feel we have enough foot traffic within a precinct we will always consider certain locations.
If we can "own" a space internally & externally we feel this gives us the greatest opportunity to succeed, so locations with the right visual aspects are quite often viewed favourably.
Our foray into Swanston Street this year should increase our awareness to even more potential landlords and in turn more sites - the business has always been built around the notion that we can operate in Shopping Strips, Shopping Centres and other lifestyle & entertainment precincts.
QSR Media: Are there any other plans Rozzi's is particularly excited about?
Dean Salomone: WA and SA will be next regions for us to consider once we announce our preferred Master Franchise operator for NSW.
Growth in any business is always exciting however we are the first to acknowledge that as we open new stores we'll be focussed on continually refining our business model to ensure all our franchise partners continually benefit - Master Franchisees and Franchisees alike.
An intergrated Management Information System is one such project that will allow franchisees the ability to track all major KPI's within their business. We love business analtyics as much as pizza & pasta at Rozzi's - our backgrounds are from major Multi Site Operations for an International Franchise System so we fully appreciate the need for our franchise operators have to access to the most accurate & relevant data in a timely manner. Our MIS project will go along way to helping us achieve this.
We want to shake up the perception about Italian themed food and also franchised businesses in general here in Australia. Both have been seen as not "on trend" nor healthy for you!
Hopefully you can tell from our online presence that we like to poke fun at ourselves & consider oursleves as much of a lifestyle brand as anything.
Our motto is that we want each Rozzi's to be seen as its "local" and have its own DNA - you'll note no chequered table cloths nor Italian Flags on display anywhere!
