Chart of the week: Find out what this chart means for pizza retailers

Retail Food Group signalling its intent with significant ramp up of outlets.

Last week we gave some key takeaways from Retail Food Group’s (RFG) half yearly results (link to article).

This week, J.P Morgan have published their analysis of the franchise group’s results, and what stands out is their aggressive move to open more gourmet pizza outlets.

As the chart shows, while their traditional outlets have shown net reductions in stores over the half year, their Pizza Capers and Crust chains have roared ahead.

As the report explains “In FY13, RFG announced that it had decided to accelerate the outlet growth for its gourmet pizza division from 270 outlets now to 355 by the end of FY14 and 415 by the end of 3Q FY15.
In line with this, 49 new Crust and Pizza Capers outlets have been commissioned exceeding 1H14 initial expectations for 30. ~40 outlets are expected to be commissioned in 2H14. 33 of the 49 new outlets have already been franchised.

RFG is facilitating this increase in three ways:

· Incentivising or financially aiding approved franchise applicants

· Stimulating Multi-Site Owner franchisees

· Direct investment into store fitout by the company with the view to selling these to a franchisee”.

How their competitors respond to this faster than expected expansion will be interesting to watch as the year progresses, but one thing seems sure, the pizza market looks set to heat up!