MANILA, Philippines — Udenna Group’s food arm is planning to open six Conti’s Bakeshop & Restaurant stores and 15 Wendy’s Philippines stores in the country this year.
Eight8Ate Holdings Inc. president and CEO Joey Garcia told reporters there are six Conti’s stores in the pipeline, to be opened mainly in provincial cities this year, with all stores to be owned by the company.
Aside from opening new Conti’s stores, he said eight of the existing outlets of the premium casual dining restaurant are being renovated.
“We have stores that I think we haven’t touched for like eight years. Ideally, a store should be touched up, you could say (have a) facelift in six years,” he said.
He said the renovation would cost an average of P2 million to P3 million per store.
As for fast-food chain Wendy’s, he said the plan is to open at least 15 new stores within the year.
He said the majority of the Wendy’s stores in the country are company-owned, while the rest are franchises.
The planned expansion would bring the total store count to 80 for Conti’s and about 86 to 90 for Wendy’s.
Asked about plans for an initial public offering, Garcia said this may come later on, but is currently not a priority for the company.
While there are many foreign brands that have approached the company to bring their concepts into the country, he said the focus for now is to grow its existing food brands.
“We have a non-compete clause with Wendy’s. So some of the brands (that approached us) are into it…It will be difficult for us,” he said.
While the company has started its study to understand the US market, he said there are no plans for now to bring its food businesses outside of the country.
“I think it’s too early (to expand overseas) because there is still a big opportunity for us here at this point of time,” he said.
Should the company expand overseas, the ideal setup for the company is to find a partner for the master franchise.
For now, Eight8Ate intends to put more of its resources to support the expansion of both Conti’s and Wendy’s within the country.
“I think we have a lot of opportunities to bring Conti’s to other parts of the Philippines. We’re not even in the far North. The farthest we have is in Pangasinan, Dagupan area. We still want to expand as far as the Bicol side and the south,” he said.
As there are currently no Wendy’s stores in the Visayas, he said the priority is to expand in that area.
He said the company is also looking to eventually expand its coffee kiosk brand Better Coffee, which is present in four locations.
He said revenues from the food brands are expected to grow by about 12 percent this year.
Of its food brands, Conti’s contributes the biggest share to revenues at about 60 percent.