lenic food and culture and hospitality. Zeus currently has 17 stores across Australia. IRW: How did you come up with the concept of Zeus? CA: The business was started three years ago in June and it was really about fulfilling a need in terms of a Mediterranean ethnic offering, which we saw a real opportunity for. There’s a lot of Chinese food and quite a bit of Mexican out there, but we thought, why haven’t we represented the Hellenic offering as well as we could be? That was the catalyst for it. The conversation started five years ago with a group of like-minded shareholders and really, it was about trying to develop a unique brand that was relevant and on-trend, while staying true to its core beliefs around quality and sustainability using local products. It was about the experience we were getting every time we were travelling overseas, seeing an opportunity in the marketplace and reinventing Greek food. IRW: What were people’s perceptions of Greek food like before you launched? CA: People had a misconceived perception of Greek food. A lot of it based on those traditional taverns that hadn’t evolved over time and really just offered a real staple of Greek cuisine, which a lot of people know, like moussaka, pasticcio and tinned dolmades – they didn’t really showcase the freshness and the accessibility of what we’re doing. What we’re doing is the kind of food you could get at any vendor in Athens or Thessaloniki or one of the Greek islands – a great tasting protein, fresh vegetables and the ability to indulge as well. Everything is really fresh and it’s about serving today’s product, so there was the opportunity to change that perception to fresh, beautiful, locally sourced produce, which no-one else was doing. Our pita bread is done by an artisan baker that does small-scale baking. He’s not a big-time manufacturer. Will that change over time as well scale as we grow? We certainly hope not. This is part of our DNA, it’s about making sure that all the vegetables that come to the store are within hours of wherever the store is located. I think there’s been a real shift in people’s understanding of the ethnic offering and being open to it. The Chinese do it really well, the Italians have been doing it for a long time with so many fantastic eateries around the country and recently, we’ve seen a movement towards Mexican. We’re such a fast-moving society that everyone’s just looking for the next fix, their next cultural experience. IRW: What plans do you have for next financial year? CA: Network growth is really important. We want a strong presence, but we’re not delusional. It’s not about being the next Subway for us, but it’s about being in really iconic locations, having a loyal customer base, really strong trading stores and ensuring that we can execute it well. There’s a balance between that and having too many stores that aren’t loved, where product falls down and customer engagement falls down, so it’s a fine line. We’re not takeaway because there’s a bit more technique in what’s needed to serve our food. It’s not about having 150 locations for us, because there’s difficulty in that, in the way systems are replicated. In a franchising sector, good franchise systems are cookie cutter and can be replicated. With our model, there are some challenges in doing that [replication], because we’re dealing with protein, it’s a temperamental product. We’re almost a restaurant but we’re not. For us, offering a quality customer experience is at the forefront of what we’re doing. We are on track to do approximately 8-10 stores per financial year. This year, we’ll close the year off with 20 stores trading. We’re about to open our 15th store in Brisbane at Chermside and we’ll do a further five by the end of the year and we’ll do another half dozen next year as well. We have a strong 12 months planned. We’ve got a presence in Perth, we’ll do a couple there, with a few more in Brisbane, too. There’s been strong interest from Adelaide, we’re talking to a number of partners to potentially take it to Melbourne. Sydney and regional areas are definitely places we’ll continue to grow. Regional lends us some opportunity to grow. When I say ‘regional’, I mean places like Newcastle, Wollongong and Armidale. We’ve been getting quite a lot of interest from those areas that have got really strong economies and industry. We’re negotiating Toowoomba at the moment. The sector’s different to what it was five years ago and it’s a completely different landscape compared to 10 years ago. There are a lot more players in the sector and it’s very competitive, so you need to look for opportunities everywhere. If you look at just city metro areas, you’ll be hard pressed for growth, the string is only so long. IRW: Is international expansion on the cards? CA: Yes, we would certainly look at international, but it probably won’t be on our radar until we’ve got more of a presence here domestically. From my own experience, you have to be really mindful of your partners. It can be a landmine if you don’t have the right partners. Would we look at doing it ourselves? Unlikely. I think it’s important you have people on the ground who are actually in food and operating retail outlets, who execute well, understand real estate and the employment prerequisites of that country. There are so many things. When you take a brand that looks good and put it in Dubai, Shanghai or London, there are so many other factors that can play havoc and for me, the biggest thing for me is the backend, like sourcing the right protein over there. IRW: The changing casual dining landscape in Australia is doing really well, particularly Sydney and Melbourne. Why? CA: I think what we’ve got is a real appetite for different things and that can be great for a start-up. Customers are frequently getting bored, so when you see new brands coming to the market, there’s an explosion of followers and a tribal following. It’s the culture we’re living today. Millennials in particular have an insatiable appetite for new things and brands. It’s great. The inability for the traditional QSR sector to keep up with the pace has allowed for casual dining to flourish. A lot of traditional brands are playing catch-up and not doing it really well or they don’t have that ability to manoeuvre, they’re being quite lumbersome, which has been to their detriment – it’s allowed companies like us to get on with it. IRW: You co-founded Crust Pizza, which was a big success and sold to the Retail Food Group for $41 million. What kind of lessons did you learn from that business that you’d like to implement at Zeus? CA: We did a fantastic job at Crust, it was quite progressive. I think one of our biggest advantages was our ability to really invest in resources to scale. When you’re in a high-growth business, and you’ve come out of that start-up phase, you take for granted a lot of the systems you have in the backend to give you the ability to scale well. For example, the ability to train franchisees or business partners well, the ability to have online learning portals – you’re starting all over again. For us at Crust, timing was important. Back then, we understood what the market was – they were health-conscious, but consumer insights were telling us something different. Today, they are concerned with healthy eating, but it doesn’t drive their decisions. Innately, our business is pitched towards that – it’s all about providence, where our chickens come rom and the fact that they’re hormone and antibiotic free. Our spinach is picked locally and our pastry is rolled locally, it’s not a pre-made pastry. Our chips come from potato farmers in Victoria – it’s a fourth generation family. I know that’s what consumers are more interested in today. It’s about really knowing and being insightful of what your customers want. We knew that at Crust and we did that really well. IRW: There’s been a lot of controversy in the franchise sector lately, with several businesses being exposed as underpaying staff. Do you think there are certain weaknesses in the franchise model that make it easier for problems like that to slip through the cracks? CA: I think there are a lot more tensions within retail today than there were ever before, starting with the rent. Retail rents are through the roof, and in some instances, they account for over 10 per cent revenue. Labour costs are significantly higher, particularly with weekend rates and penalty rates. In some instances, retailers are worse off opening on a public holiday. There’s a lot of tension in the retail space. As a franchisor, you can’t always control everything, there are always going to be a couple of rotten apples. As a franchisor, we have to be more diligent and stringent in the way we audit stores and we need the authority to actually enforce processes and systems. They’re about to pass legislation with franchisors so they become responsible for franchisees’ underpaying or doing the wrong thing. This shifts the blame and there’ll be consequences for us in the way we manage our franchisees. We request regular P&Ls, we have external auditor of accounts. There are a lot of things we’re doing to counteract a franchisee doing the wrong thing, but you’re policing them a lot more than you ever were before – it wasn’t like this 15 years ago. IRW: What’s on the menu for the coming few months? CA: We have a new menu launch every February/March. We have some seasonal salads and limited-time offers that come up to play with the season and give our customers more choice to experience different flavours. We’re a protein-based offering with sides and salads, but we are looking at ramping our range of vegetarian options. Obviously a Mediterranean diet is a highly vegetarian-based diet, so we’re working on a couple of initiatives that will give us the ability to play in the vegetarian space. There’s some real opportunity there and is some movement overseas where it’s cool. We love our proteins and the real scope is for us lies in our souvla machine, which can give us the ability to be creative with vegetarian options, which is what we’ll be doing for six months. IRW: Do you have any plans for the digital side of the business? CA: When it comes to digital, there’s a fine line for a growth company with limited funds – we run the risk of disengaging with our customers in-house. Eighty per cent of our revenue is actually customer interaction – people coming in, being served by our point of sales staff and having this whole in-house dining experience. There are a couple initiatives we’re working on. There’s a new iPhone app which will offer seamless ordering and the ability to order through the app and be rewarded. Our online loyalty program is coming into the fray in the next three months and we have an app which has been improved. We’re working on other things such as the ability to pick up a second order at a table. We’re looking at how we can generate a second and third order from the table. Because our model is counter service, people often don’t want to get up from their table to get a second drink, so we’re looking at couple of online portals that allow us to integrate. IRW: And video has played a significant role in your business too, isn’t it? CA: We find video a great way of communicating our brand message. Obviously we’ve got great stories to tell, whether it’s on a social front, on our work with charities or the community programs we endorse or our product. Every year, we’ll do a series of videos. We’ve done one on [our brand strategy] ‘food honestly’ and one on our social partner, Weave, a charity for indigenous communities. We’ve got one that we’re launching that’s focused on community and that will be out within the three months. We want to profile people and telling stories about the brand. We want to talk about the guy who makes our wooden paddles. He’s from the Central Coast and he’s been doing this for 25 years. The guy who makes our spanakopita (a Greek version of a spinach pie) is a local guy from Sydney and owns an iconic business that does a lot of Greek sweets and pastries and he custom makes our pastry for us. We want to profile him and the people who work for him, he’s got people in there who are first generation migrants that came here back in the 60s and 70s and 70-80 year old ladies who still work in there. IRW: Tell me about your express concept stores. What do they involve? CA: The Zeus express store has a smaller footprint. It’s about 35-40 sqm and it’s literally high traffic flow areas like shopping centres, more CBD footprints, where it’s a refined menu. You’ll get pitas and side salads and the Spartan box, which is one of our top sellers (it’s a protein with a side and a salad in a box). They give us the ability to add a bit more scale to the business. We’ve got one in Pitt St Mall and Australia Square, we’re building a third in Brisbane in Queens Plaza. It’s all about the convenience of your food in a smaller footprint. It gives us the ability to bring in franchisees at a more palatable entry price. Restaurants are dear, express stores aren’t as expensive. IRW: Obviously retail rents are a big problem for a lot of retailers. Would you say it’s one of the biggest challenges for the QSR industry at the moment? CA: Absolutely, rents are a big thing for us. There are the pressures of rent and the pressures of online aggregators that want to deliver your food and want a commission as well. You’re losing points everywhere. You need to be mindful of that and the business has to work. If i doesn’t work, then why bother? I think the main pressures are rent, your labour costs can be concerning and obviously your ability to manage key issues within the business. News travels that quickly that you could be doing all the right things, but then you have one bad experience in one store and one bad Instagram or Facebook post and it can be quite damaging to your business. Managing the social community is just as much of a threat to a business than the internal factors and the monetary tensions like rent, wages. It’s a big thing for us, we’re constantly looking at manage it all and how to improve. It just doesn’t stop. For us, there are always the traditional tensions and then there are non-traditional issues, which by the way, will also be seen as traditional soon. We’ve got a full-time staff member who just does content and community management and talks to our consumers very quickly, if someone’s unhappy about an experience or if they’re happy, we like to share it. People want to be spoken to, they want to have a conversation. It’s really an important thing for brands to do today. I just don’t get brands that don’t respond to a customer complaint within a day. If you don’t have that conversation, a bad customer experience can just escalate. I’ve also seen situations where poor experiences have become a win for the business and I think that’s important. Companies that have brand managers in positions of influence need to understand how quickly they can turn a negative experience into a win for the business. A lot of consumers want simple things – the ability to be heard, recognised and then action taken over whatever the situation was. I think we do that really well, it’s one of the thing I’m proud of.