MYO reveals makeover plans under new bosses

They are going to focus on regional Australia.

Pacific Investments has recently acquired sandwich brand, Make Your Own (MYO).

MYO currently has a total of twelve stores, and Pacific Investments is looking to unveil three more in the coming months.

Read the full report here.

Below is a Q&A with Greg Kennedy, Chairman of Pacific Investments.

QSR Media: Why was MYO attractive to you?

Kennedy: MYO was very attractive to me as I could envisioned that the unique MYO concept could be taken worldwide.

While MYO has franchised stores in Australia, the UK and Ireland, I can see this brand being well accepted in other parts of the world including Asia, Canada and the US just to name a few.

However, there is still many opportunities in Australia especially in Sydney, Melbourne and other regional areas.

QSR Media: You have stated regional Australia is a focus, tell us a bit more about this.

Kennedy: There are many regional areas in Australia that are seeking healthy, fresh food in a simple to use fast food concept.

MYO will be able to provide regional Australia with an alternative to the burgers and fried chicken that they have readily available at the moment.

MYO will be working with our suppliers to ensure that we can provide quality, healthy food to everyone in a model that is available 7 days per week.

QSR Media: Tell us a bit about the store network

Kennedy: At this time MYO has 12 stores which are all franchised.

However, we are in the process of opening two corporate stores in Brisbane and one on the Gold Coast within the next couple of months.

Corporate stores are required by MYO to ensure that we are able to train all MYO franchisees and staff to our required quality and service levels.

Corporate stores are also essential to test next concepts that my team believes will be successful for our franchisees.

However, testing of new concepts should not be placed on a franchisee to trial and we are eager to get the MYO corporate stores open soon.

Additional corporate stores are currently planned to be opened in Sydney by end of June and in Melbourne by end of September.

With suitable training facilities and a corporate store to complete practical training, we will be actively seeking new franchisees to join the MYO business.

QSR Media: Tell us a bit about Pacific Investments.

Kennedy: Pacific Investments has been in business for over 20 years and has been used to acquire and invest in other Australian businesses that I have had an interest in.

However, over the last few years my focus has been predominantly offshore with particular interest in Asia, Africa and Europe.

When the MYO business was acquired, Pacific Investments was the natural choice to be the parent company.

QSR Media: What are your goals with the new marketing and advertising campaign slated for the first quarter of this year?

Kennedy: My first goal is to get the MYO brand to be known by the public at large as well as the ease of the 'Make Your Own' concept.

The MYO brand has had limited advertising in the past and the brand has survived generally on word of mouth from our loyal customers.

Therefore, I am looking for advertising concepts that will give us exposure in traditional advertising areas such as radio and print plus getting well known and 'liked' in social media and online.

QSR Media: Any other comments?

Kennedy: I am very excited about the future and thoroughly believe that MYO will become a major player in the healthy fast food market in the coming years.

I look forward to working with our existing franchisees and our future franchisees to deliver our unique concept around Australia and the world.