Mango Tree to expand to Bistro and Cafe models in Australia
One brand, three models.
Established in 1994 by Coco Holding International, Mango Tree is a global Thai resto-franchise with operations in London, Tokyo, Dubai, Manila, Hong Kong, and Jakarta, among others.
After expanding throughout Asia, Mango Tree has now expressed its interest in expanding to Australia by 2015. "We believe with the tiering of our brand we can essentially have 15 locations over the next 5 years," Trevor MacKenzie, Managing Director of Mango Tree, tells QSR Media.
He shares that they plan to establish the brand through its flagship restaurant and then to eventually expand to Bistro and Cafe models. These models will suit more suburban areas and clients that may not always eat exotic cuisine, he explained.
The plan involves opening one Mango Tree flagship restaurant per city, and multiple Mango Tree Bistros and cafes.
Adding, "different segments have different spending habits so in a mall or suburban lifestyle centre you would not charge the same price, therefore you have to have different tiers of your concept. I think especially in a mall and suburban are you can develop a brand following."
However, MacKenzie emphasized that the Mango Tree is not in a rush to expand, as they want to make sure all of its partners are profitable.
He noted that an ideal partner-franchisee for the brand is someone that has existing F&B operations. "So we can feel confident in their infrastructure and knowledge in the business, however that said we have worked together with a few retail groups that had existing infrastructure in place and we helped them to then grow the F&B portion."
THE PERFECT LOCATION
The brand is leaning towards Sydney for the location of its first flagship store with Melbourne also being considered, to be opened at the end of 2015 or first quarter of 2016.
"[Sydney] has a few wow locations that we are after, we have always looked at Melbourne as well however being a fickle town for F&B we believe Sydney may fit our 3-revenue stream model better," said MacKenzie.
Mango Tree is keen to open its doors to Australia due to the very high acceptance of Thai food in the country. He noted that, "we believe that having a full Thai brand will give Australian confidence in the brand," adding, "our flag ship offers something different than just going to eat Thai food, its more of an experience – the design, mood, music, cocktails."
He closely compared Mango Tree to Mr. Wong in Sydney, "[where you eat] Chinese in a non-traditional, more modern environment."
"Our flagship will speak for itself, in design and overall atmosphere, and presentation of food is not your typical curry in a bowl."
2015 AND BEYOND
Aside from Australia, Mango Tree is working non-stop on its global expansion.
Mango Tree has almost completed its expansion goals for Asia, after confirming opening another outlet in India in Janauary and signing a deal for China to have our first 2 outlets open in June 2015.
The brand will also be opening its first United States outlet in Washington DC by November and expressed interest in opening in Miami and Mexico, on top of Australia.
"The primary is Australia... Europe we have been focusing on lifestyle cities of the Mediterranean of Istanbul, Barcelona, and we will open a pop up store in Milan for world expo 2015. We had earlier sites on Copenhagen and next year will be our first visits to Germany."
