Giggling Squid founder Andy Laurillard has spoken of his desire to consolidate the UK independent Thai restaurant market as the business announced a 55% boost in revenue.
The British Growth Fund-backed Thai restaurant group currently has 17 sites which it plans to grow to 25 by mid-2017.
With performance well above expectations, Laurillard said there were plenty of market towns where the brand could be a success, and said its target of 50-70 sites in five-seven years remained achievable.
He was speaking after Giggling Squid announced revenue figures for the year up to March 2016 totalling £11.8m, a 55% increase on the previous year, which makes it the largest casual dining Thai group in the UK. EBITDA figures for same period were £1.9m, a 53% increase.
Better than expected demand is enabling the group to open and fill larger units, with openings in Warwick (150 covers) Wokingham (120 covers), and Farnham (140 covers) due before Christmas., Laurillard said.
“We’re trying to consolidate independent Thai restaurant trade in the UK”, he said. “There’s 1,400 Thai restaurants and probably 1,00 Thai pub kitchens and we want a good share of that business.
“We’re not looking at the big city sites, we’re leaving that to other guys to fight over. We like smaller towns and there’s a lot of those small market towns we can go and do quite well.
“The business could get to 150 in terms of places you could put it, whether its manageable at that scale that’s another matter.
“We just go at the pace we’re comfortable with, keep the quality up and see how we feel. Certainly the original goal of 50-70 in five-seven years is achievable.”
The group is one year into British Growth Fund investment, and Laurillard said there was no need for further capital injection for now.
On current trading he added: “We are a long way ahead of expectations on revenue, with a number of improvements to operation of business which we’re starting to see translated into revenue.
“It’s a case of two steps forward one step back as the exchange rate movement is starting to come through with higher prices. But we’re in a better placed than we thought and we’re quite comfortable with where we are.”
