Breaking News: ex Souvlakihut franchisees breakaway to form rival chain called Grill Me

QSR Media has learned that many of the old Souvlakihut franchisees are forming a new chain, with the backing of Franchise Food Company (operators of Mr Whippy, Pretzel World, Nutshack and Cold Rock Icecreamery) and turning their stores into “Grill Me”.

We sort comment from Sophie Valkan, CEO, Souvlakihut who confirmed she had heard this too. Valkan wished them well but hoped they had ““done their homework” and knew what they were doing as a “one size fits all” approach had its risks.

There is dispute though about the size of the current Souvlakihut network with Valkan telling us there were 20 sites as they had recently converted around another 10 sites on the 7th January. Our sources say this is not the case and many of these are going with the new GrillMe enterprise. Asked whether this would have an affect on Souvlakihut, Vlakan was confident it wouldn’t as there were already enough stores in the current network of 20 to get the economies of scale needed and that there was plenty of room in the current Australian QSR landscape for more chains.