March/April (Revised)

THEY WERE AHEAD OF THE GAME.
THE SPEED AT WHICH YOU WERE
ABLE TO IMPLEMENT OR CONVERT
YOUR CHANNELS WAS KEY. WE HAVE
BRANDS THAT HAD NEVER DONE
ONLINE ORDERING AND DELIVERY,
BUT THEY WENT INTO IT AND WERE
ABLE TO CAPTURE A PART OF THEIR
MARKET. THE WILLINGNESS OF
FRANCHISEES TO PIVOT
WAS IMPORTANT
Canada are 18 per cent above last year’s sales
for average-unit volume; it hasn’t closed any
stores and has opened 10 units in Canada in
the pandemic.
“In our brand history, there was already a
shift in traffic from on- to off-premise. The
entire industry was in decline for dine-in
business. The big question was where that
decline was going to stop. Now the question
isn’t how far will dine-in business fall
but how far will it rise and where will it level
off? It’ll take at least the next few years to get
the dine-in business at the point to which it
would have otherwise fallen before the pandemic.
We’ll reach a point of equilibrium that,
given entertainment, technology, all those
factors that go into consumer behaviour, will
stabilize. And restaurants will have adjusted
their business models accordingly. Those
restaurants whose concepts are in line with
consumer needs will succeed. But we probably
won’t be at that settling point until 2023.
“Overall, our franchisee partners are hanging
in there,” says Marie-Line Beauchamp, COO
for the casual-dining division with MTY
Group, which has 7,200 sites. “I’m trying to
send a positive message because COVID-19
could be very depressing for a lot of people.
As a company, we have a lot of great stories for
our franchisees and there are some brands
that are doing phenomenally because of
COVID-19.” For example, sales at Yuzu, a
sushi brand that’s mainly in Quebec, have
exploded. “Why?” Beauchamp ponders. “A few
reasons. Anyone can cook a pizza or a chicken,
but they rarely make their own sushi,” she
says, adding MTY’s sushi brands have excelled
over the last 10 months.
So, too, says Beauchamp, have those brands
that had perfected their online ordering systems
before the pandemic. “They were ahead
of the game. The speed at which you were
able to implement or convert your channels
was key. We have brands that had never done
online ordering and delivery, but they went
into it and were able to capture a part of their
market. The willingness of franchisees to
pivot was important.”
The franchisor helped with procurement,
recruitment, digital support, ongoing menu
engineering and safety. For some brands,
MTY adjusted its royalty structure. Some of
the units in downtown urban centres have
closed, but sales in rural regions have been
steady. “We haven’t lost a lot of franchisees,”
Beauchamp says. “As a matter of fact, there
are opportunities. The government, with
labour and rent subsidies, it’s a game changer.
We had to be agile and to adapt all the time
because we were facing challenges all the time.
You had to be on the tip of your toes. I have
some franchisees who had decided they were
going to make it work and they were able to
retain 60 or 70 per cent of their delivery in
the breakfast space. Some really went out of
their way to make sure an eggs Benedict could
Yuzu Sushi Moncton Team
(below); Firkin Pubs (above
left)
24 FOODSERVICE AND HOSPITALITY MARCH/APRIL 2021 FOODSERVICEANDHOSPITALITY.COM