Charlie Lovett - a QSR on the rise
Roaster, Baker, Sandwich Maker is their mantra. From roasting their own coffee beans, to daily baking of bread, QSR Media gets the low down on this emerging QSR in this interview with their founder, Peter Caddick.
QSR Media: Charlie Lovett - tell us about it
Peter: Charlie Lovett is on a mission. A mission to bring to life freshly roasted coffee, great fresh pastries, sandwiches with a fantastic service.
Charlie Lovett is born from the desire to see great tasting coffee, education and direct bean sourcing all over Australia. Charlie wants to train coffee roasters in every suburb, to service their local community with love and attention. To bring community back to communities.
A vision where you walk into a Charlie Lovett to meet your friends. You are welcomed in by the Charlie team and take a seat to enjoy some great food and coffee. Whilst enjoying your order you start chatting to your coffee roaster about what the latest coffee is and what you should look out for next week. Then you leave picking up a bag of beans to try at home and waving all the team good bye.
QSR Media: The brand "Charlie Lovett", how and why did you come up with this concept?
Peter: Charlie Lovett came from a desire to build a character that is fun, that can be easily related to, and aspires towards something everyone can believe in. Charlie is the best of all of us. Charlie represents the values of the business. A passion for quality, great conversations and giving value. Charlie is the fun in our day, the moment of magic when all seems mundane. The moment of attention and care when we need it most.
Building Charlie Lovett this way we always envisioned that the team would be able to aspire to something. In an industry that doesn't pay and reward well on the whole, I believe that if a brand stands for something, that offers inspiration and opportunities, people will want to join.
We believe in giving our own team the opportunities to learn, grow and have their own Charlie store.
Ultimately if the team is happy the customers will be too.
The concept came together with the help and consultation of Franchise Garage. Franchise Garage turned a set of ideas and thoughts into a credible business operation. Building the blocks of the puzzle and putting them together at the right time. Often building a brand the desire is to do it all straight away. There is a method of success and Franchise Garage really made that come together for me.
QSR Media: Charlie Lovett has an emphasis on "freshness" with In house roasting of the coffee beans, daily baking of bread, what kind of logistical challenges has this entailed?
Peter: The logistics behind the coffee roasting have been very large. When I started no one would train in roasting, or offer to help. It is still very much a 'dark art' where anyone who wants to get into the business has to teach themselves. The good news is we managed to crack the training formula! We currently have a very healthy crop of roasters who are all internally trained, roasting away, winning awards and challenging many of the old coffee industry barriers.
QSR Media: Staffing must be complex with your business (given the above), tell us how you overcome this?
Peter: Every role in the business is easily trained. Different roles for example a Barista and Roaster take time to develop, but all in all are easy to learn skills. The way we maintain the level of quality is down to a passionate, committed young Ops team who have all grown up with the business. As we grow they grow. As we learn they learn. This commitment to all growing up together, really helped through the early business development stage which is very labour and cash intensive. In terms of a franchise offer we give very high touch points in terms of support and training and will continue this ethos as we grow. Where there is a problem the whole team comes together to help.
QSR Media: Corporate stores vs franchised, what's the mix?
Peter: We currently have 1 corporate and 5 franchised stores.
QSR Media: What are some of your goals for the next 12 months?
Peter: Goals for the next 12 months.
1. Carry on innovating our roasting platform, so each Charlie Lovett roaster is roasting 12 hours a day ( no easy feat!)
2. Carry on increasing the top end sales of the business.
3. Open up another 6 stores, in great locations with passionate people.
