27 October 2020 – Johannesburg – Fiamme Holdings, owner and franchisor of over 100 outlets through The Fish & Chip Co. and Maxi’s Grill brand, today announced the opening of its new revolutionary franchise online restaurant concept – CloudDine.
The first CloudDine franchise outlet will service customers in the East Rand area with the store located in the Eastgate mall precinct. Kitchen set-ups are state of the art, with a paperless business model and a plan to integrate the point of sale directly into accounting, labour and payroll modules. Both customers and franchisees can rest assured of exceptional quality, variety and value with a laser focus on delivery only by CloudDine.
According to Carlo Gonzaga, Non-Executive Director at Fiamme Holding, the concept has been in the pipeline for some time. “COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of online purchasing and home delivery to the extent that restaurant business models need to be re-imagined with delivery-only in mind. We have carefully considered the pain points in a franchisee’s life, and believe that a delivery-only restaurant model will address these. They stand to benefit from lower set-up costs as there is only a kitchen and no customer area to be fitted out, similarly these kitchens can be set up where there is a demand as opposed to prominent shopping malls, which translates into lower rentals,” said Gonzaga.
Gonzaga further explained that there is opportunity to increase margins, lower risk, and easier management for franchisees, all attributable to more efficient labour processes and outsourced delivery that removes the burden of having to manage a fleet of bikes and drivers.
Summarising the benefits customers stand to enjoy, Fiamme’s Managing Director, Jan De Beer had this to say, “Customers benefit in three main ways: first is choice – we have a large variety which means that families don’t have to always compromise between a pizza or a hamburger as they currently do. We think this is good for household peace! Second is speed – delivery is treated as a second priority in traditional restaurants whereas for us it is the whole business. Everything from prep times, packaging, and order accuracy is a priority which means customers get hot food fast. Lastly is value: we add the cost of delivery into the price of the product, as most restaurants currently have to add the delivery cost to the price. We are able to do this due to our focused delivery-only model.”
“Ultimately we want to optimize the work flow and management of the business such that our franchisees can own multiple outlets without needing massive back-offices as is currently the case.” said De Beer.
Gonzaga added, “What’s exciting is that we have taken everything we learnt from all the business we have been involved in and started from scratch. That means we have not had to make too many compromises. We’re excited to be able to offer franchisees an opportunity to participate at the early stages of a new concept.”
We got to chat to Carlo Gonzaga, the non executive director at Fiamme Holdings and this is what he had to say
What’s the inspiration behind CloudDine?
The first one is that we want to reinvent food franchising in South Africa when it comes to franchisee profitability in South Africa. The second we want to build a business where its sole focus is delivery, from how long it takes to prepare the food to the type of packaging that we use and everything that we use is centered around how we give a great delivery experience.
So, would you say your delivery process is what sets you apart from other businesses?
This concept is not entirely new but what sets us apart is how we execute it.
Since CloudDine has launch in the East of Johannesburg, could we see other stores opening soon or will it be centered around the Eastrand for now?
So Cloud Dine is part of a larger group of about 125 stores or so in total so we got a national footprint as we stand in the broader group so Cloud Dine will be able to utilize those relationships chains that we already have to expand around the country but right now this is our first store.
There are many young culinary graduate who wants to joins such groups like CloudDine, how could they join the family?
So for that they could get in touch with the Fiamme Holdings and one of the brands we own is the Fish and Chips company which many may know and we are always looking for new people to bring them in especially with CloudDine growing to work as trainers, but ultimately there are various opportunities.
