Iconic American Diner Concept approached A&C to help them find a regional franchisee in Canada

Objective: In 2017 an iconic American Diner Concept approached A&C to help them find a regional franchisee in Canada. This project lasted 6 months after which we successfully delivered them 3 interested potential partners in Canada. Looking for a suitable and reliable franchisee in a new market can be a daunting and arduous task – but A&C has many years of experience in the field which makes the process simple and efficient for our clients. We have a tried and tested methodology as well as an extensive database of vetted F&B companies in North America, the Middle East and Asia which means we can match our client with the best partner.

Work done: We start our franchisee search by understanding what our client wants, their culture of doing things and their end goals. We take these points and integrate them into our own methodologies to create a tailor-made service. Our next job is undertaking a detailed market data analysis of the country in question, in this case, Canada. Our researchers compile analysis on the economy, government, politics, stability, geography, population and culture of Canada to create a well-rounded and detailed view. We then execute a second F&B report in which we delve deeper into the trends of this sector, such as the rise of online food apps, healthy eating trends, locally sourced produce and the popularity of restaurants that have online social media presence, such as attractive images from bloggers on Instagram and Facebook. We also look at the F&B landscape – we map out the top brands operating in Canada and then look at menu similarity, online popularity, store quantities and locations. From this data we highlight our competitors and suggest optimum areas where our client should operate.

Lastly, we carry out a possible partner search where we look for F&B, private equity companies and other groups in our database that are looking for franchise opportunities – many of these companies we have close relationships with. We then analyse our top picks by 10 criteria, some of these are; if they well-funded, have F&B capabilities, access to real estate. have a portfolio of non-competing brands, and their quality of execution i.e. if they will conduct business by our client’s standards. We rank each company by these 10 points and present our findings to our clients.

Outcome: Once we get their seal of approval we will contact these companies and forward the interested parties to our client’s franchise teams to allow them to go through the signing process.