Soul Foods Group
operational expertise + financial acumen =
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Quick Service Restaurants
UK & Canada
July 2022
Sector:
Country:
Fund Investment Date:
Gross Turnover at Acquisition (incl. franchising):
£390 million
Website:
OpCapita Executives:
Josh Spoerri, Stephen Alexander
Key Facts
Business
Soul Foods Group is a multinational quick service restaurant franchisee, operating a portfolio of nearly 400 restaurants and cafes across the United Kingdom and Canada under the KFC, Taco Bell, Starbucks and Burger King brands. The business was founded by Aly Janmohamed with the acquisition of a single KFC in London in 1985, and today employs over 7,500 people globally serving 41 million meals each year. Soul Foods Group operates a variety of formats to serve an increasingly omnichannel customer, with 55% of restaurants operating a drive-through and 20% of sales from delivery orders.
Market
The quick service restaurant sector, a £12 billion market in Canada and £19 billion market in the UK, has consistently grown in line with or ahead of consumer spending, maintained a stable share of the overall dining market, and exhibited great resilience through periods of economic compression including during Covid-19.
Its brands have demonstrated an ability to leverage pricing power to react to inflationary pressures, critical in today's environment, and, due to the value offering of KFC, Taco Bell and Burger King, hold a defensive position poised to benefit from trade-down in more challenging consumer spending environments.
The sector is now benefitting from a secular shift as consumers adopt an omnichannel approach to dining supported by the introduction of new technology to consumers and throughout the restaurant.
Strategy
Soul Foods Group is a top-five franchisee of leading global brands in a stable, value-oriented sector. Over its 35-year history, the company has demonstrated reliable execution on top of the fundamentals of its sector and brands.
Operating from this defensive foundation, OpCapita has identified a range of opportunities to drive value creation across the portfolio, including: optimisation of restaurant execution through training and investments in technology to yield improved speed of service, order accuracy and labour productivity; accelerated development of omnichannel touchpoints, such as back-of-house aggregator management software and intelligent in-store ordering kiosks; and reconstruction of the new store and renovation investment process with additional leadership and the integration of more data.
By investing in its platform and processes, Soul can efficiently capitalize on its position with the brands to lead the opportunistic consolidation of smaller franchisees to accretively accelerate its expansion into new markets.
Achievements
Since our investment, we have:
Soul Foods Group is a multinational quick service restaurant franchisee, operating a portfolio of nearly 400 restaurants and cafes across the United Kingdom and Canada under the KFC, Taco Bell, Starbucks and Burger King brands. The business was founded by Aly Janmohamed with the acquisition of a single KFC in London in 1985, and today employs over 7,500 people globally serving 41 million meals each year. Soul Foods Group operates a variety of formats to serve an increasingly omnichannel customer, with 55% of restaurants operating a drive-through and 20% of sales from delivery orders.
Market
The quick service restaurant sector, a £12 billion market in Canada and £19 billion market in the UK, has consistently grown in line with or ahead of consumer spending, maintained a stable share of the overall dining market, and exhibited great resilience through periods of economic compression including during Covid-19.
Its brands have demonstrated an ability to leverage pricing power to react to inflationary pressures, critical in today's environment, and, due to the value offering of KFC, Taco Bell and Burger King, hold a defensive position poised to benefit from trade-down in more challenging consumer spending environments.
The sector is now benefitting from a secular shift as consumers adopt an omnichannel approach to dining supported by the introduction of new technology to consumers and throughout the restaurant.
Strategy
Soul Foods Group is a top-five franchisee of leading global brands in a stable, value-oriented sector. Over its 35-year history, the company has demonstrated reliable execution on top of the fundamentals of its sector and brands.
Operating from this defensive foundation, OpCapita has identified a range of opportunities to drive value creation across the portfolio, including: optimisation of restaurant execution through training and investments in technology to yield improved speed of service, order accuracy and labour productivity; accelerated development of omnichannel touchpoints, such as back-of-house aggregator management software and intelligent in-store ordering kiosks; and reconstruction of the new store and renovation investment process with additional leadership and the integration of more data.
By investing in its platform and processes, Soul can efficiently capitalize on its position with the brands to lead the opportunistic consolidation of smaller franchisees to accretively accelerate its expansion into new markets.
Achievements
Since our investment, we have:
- Augmented the global management and reporting structure with added bandwidth and experience across restaurant operations, finance and development
- Instituted new planning tools and processes, including global standardized financial reporting, active cash management and weekly forecasting, global annual planning, and a rigorous capital allocation framework
- Accelerated investment in and implementation of digital ordering kiosks across the portfolio
- Completed the acquisition of a portfolio of eleven Burger King restaurants in western Canada
£390m
gross turnover at acquisition
7,500
people employed globally
est. 1985
founded by Aly Janmohamed