Hanul Berarilor, SaladBox, Ogorul and Il Passo are just some of the Romanian-held businesses whose owners decided to develop by franchising to be able to cover the entire country.
Dragos Petrescu, the most important entrepreneur in the restaurant sector, is taking Hanu’ Berarilor to other cities, planning to turn it into a franchise.
Dragos Petrescu’s group, City Grill, operates 16 restaurants – four of them City Grill, six Trattoria Buongiorno, three City Cafe, two Hanu’ Berarilor and one Caru’ cu Bere (which the group does not own but only helps run).
“We obviously chose the brand that proved to be the easiest to adjust and suitable for a wider range of segments. Which is what Hanu’ Berarilor is. (…) We chose big cities that can provide adequate level of traffic and the target we want, such as Constanta, Cluj, Timisoara and Iasi,” Dragos Petrescu said.
Expansion by franchising, he says, is a new line of business part of the group’s long-term development strategy.
Another example is SaladBox, a restaurant chain that sells salads and soups in the more than 30 locations throughout the country. Out of those over 30, 18 are operated by franchisees.
“The good results in the restaurants we operated made us decide to expand by franchising. It was only a matter of know-how transfer to franchisees so they could easily reproduce things already tested and perfected for conducting their business,” said Dan Isai, chief executive officer and founder of SaladBox, a fast-food type restaurant chain that serves healthy food. He says franchising makes the brand more valuable.
Footwear retailer Il Passo is looking at cities of more than 150,000 people to open franchised stores.
“We’ve received a number of requests to open an Il Passo franchised store over the last few years, which we reviewed for a while, as the footwear business is very specific, especially when it comes to a medium-high brand. Since we know what being a franchisee means, we decided to start franchising as soon as we are organized to provide full support to our future partners,” said Petru Chiriac, co-owner of Pestos, the operator of the Il Passo footwear and accessory stores.
All the 16 Il Passo stores are corporate stores.
Away from the hustle and bustle and pollution of the cities, Brise Group of businessman Marius Bucur, which is the largest Romanian-owned grain trader, is developing the farmer store brand, Ogorul.
It now has three Ogorul stores operational and four are under development, the company said. The entrepreneur wants to develop it further via franchisees.
“We’re planning to start franchising in March 2015 and want at least 50 stores in the first phase,” Angelo Nicolae, Brise Group chief executive said.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)