Chopstix Group has announced plans to open 30 new sites this year on the back of record revenues, with sales forecast to exceed £65m by the end of FY23 in April.
This uplift would equate to a 40% rise in revenue versus FY22, with the Asian QSR group targeting sales of more than £90m over the next financial year.
While like-for-like system sales are projected to be up by more than 22% in FY23 vs FY22.
In 2022, Chopstix achieved its busiest year of openings to date, launching 26 new restaurants, including its first holiday park location in partnership with Haven, at Craig Tara Park in Scotland.
The group recently announced the acquisition of competitor Chozen Noodle and its 27 Motorway Service Area locations.
Jon Lake, managing director, Chopstix Group, said, “We expect 2023 to be a momentous year for Chopstix Group. We’ve worked hard to build our team and fine-tune our operational processes to ensure this a highly scalable business that we can continue to grow rapidly.”
Chopstix recently published its accounts for the year to 24 April 2022, which it said showed an encouraging performance in a period still impacted by pandemic-related closures and restrictions, with group system sales for the year of £48m and EBITDA of £7m.
Sam Elia, co-founder, Chopstix, added: “After several years where trading has been impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, it is highly encouraging to see such marked rises in system sales. In recent years, we have focused heavily on perfecting our back of house processes, which has really supported rapid and effective expansion in footprint, particularly through the franchise model.”
“There is significant momentum behind the company, with the acquisition of Chozen and many new sites in the pipeline we are very confident about the year ahead and beyond.”
Speaking to MCA earlier this month, Lake said the group planned to convert several Chozen sites back to Chopstix and would also look to expand into retail following the acquisition.
“Chozen also has an interesting retail proposition at Co-op – maybe there’s some mileage there to work with and we can develop those in time,” he said.
