The latest Franchise Advisory Council Meeting was held on May 29, at 10am. Marc Hanmer, Greg Knox, and Gavin O’Neill participated by phone. Presentations were made Eric Horsley, Jenna Wise, Richard Shinault, and Mark Honeycutt. While this is a brief summary, please feel free to contact Neil Newcomb if you would like more detail on any subject.
Eric led the meeting with a description of the state of the system. The system is showing to have a very strong 2019. Year to date, comparable sales for the system are up 6.6%. Only 3 franchise units have negative sales and only 2 company units have negative averages. Four units in the system have double digit positive comp sales and the Bradford unit is up 30% over last year.
Next, Jenna discussed 2019 marketing for the system. If you participated in the June 6 marketing call, you heard much of the presentation. Jenna first discussed the first quarter budget, what expected revenues materialized and how those revenues were spent. The marketing fund is close to budget. Expected milestones for the systems new web site are being met and the website should be operational by August. Jenna shared social media insights from the first quarter and goals for ht second half of the year.
Richard gave the FAC a summary of the work of the Menu Development Committee. The committee is not working efficiently. Suggestions were sought from the FAC to improve the Menu Development Committee and improvements to the structure will be implemented in the near future. Other work in progress is a kid’s menu redesign, limited time offerings for the fall are being developed, a regional (not systemwide) poultry supplier has been identified and is proving to show significant savings. Finally, kid’s dough will return. Many of you may remember when children were given pizza dough to play with while they waited for their food. This practice stopped because uncooked flour was not safe to eat, and we could not guarantee kids did not eat the dough. Richard has developed a dough recipe that is safe for kids to consume if they so choose, but more importantly, they can play with it. This was a huge hit with young children in the past and should be again. Finally, please expect to see a survey on the menu and limited time offerings. The considered feedback from the system is important.
Finally Mark Honeycutt reported to the committee that the proposed new Point of Sale software, Breadcrumb, is not able to meet needs associated with payroll. While the Breadcrumb system has many attributes, the negatives far outweigh the positives and we will no longer be using the system. We still have hopes for another system.