Shakeaway, the takeaway milkshake concept, is opening eight UK stores this year as part of a ten year plan to have more than 3,000 stores worldwide, M&C Report has learnt.
The company, which opened its first store in Bournemouth in 1999 and began franchising in 2007, is opening sites in Solihull, Leeds, Marlow, Wokingham, Glasgow, Gravesend, Birmingham and Wolverhampton before the end of the year to add to the recently opened Watford and Leicester branches.
Stephanie Howard, product development manager, told M&C Report: “Shakeaway is on course to deliver our ten year plan of opening more than 3,000 stores worldwide, with over 500 stores already in signed development plans.”
The company said it is pursuing “space sharing” opportunities with brands including Quiznos, Burger King and Subway – which it currently shares an outlet with at Croydon Valley Park. Howard said the group would also consider locations at airports and train stations.
Shakeaway has opened three stores in the US this month at La Jolla and Pacific Beach, California and in Georgia. Its next international openings include three stores in Mexico, two in Oman, Qatar, South Africa, Bahrain, Pakistan, India and Malaysia as well as further US stores in New York and another in California.
Howard said: “We currently receive over 500 franchise enquiries a month from over 65 countries around the world. With the USA, the key market place for rapid expansion, our recent store openings in La Jolla and Pacific Beach in California produced record sales and this will be joined shortly with further stores opening Georgia and New York.”
The majority of international locations have master franchisees for either the whole country or state, although some states in the USA are sold on a city by city basis.
“Franchise applications from the USA have been received from every state with applications booming following the recent shop openings. Shakeaway USA has the opportunity to grow to several thousand stores across the next five years as it has a unique concept that competitors find very difficult to copy along with broadly half the investment cost of a similar sized yoghurt store,” Howard said.
Aside from the existing countries that have Shakeaway stores, the company expects further growth in southern and eastern Europe, South America, India, China and emerging African nations.
Shakeaway was acquired four years ago by the main shareholders Peter Dickson and Stephen Jensen and has been profitable since that point, which allows funding from internal cash flow.
There are currently 35 stores in operation throughout the UK, of which 26 are franchised.
