MOD Pizza, the fast casual artisan pizza restaurant operator led by Seattle Coffee Company founder Scott Svenson, and Blaze Pizza, one of the fastest-growing better pizza brands in the US, are both exploring opportunities to debut in the UK, M&C understands.
MOD, which is on track to operate 100 sites in the US by the end of 2015, is believed to be weeks away from announcing a partnership deal to launch in the UK.
At the same time, M&C understands that the team behind Blaze Pizza, which was founded by Rick and Elise Wetzel, founders of Wetzel’s pretzels, have also started to have early conversations with prospective partners regarding debuting here.
Blaze Pizza president and chief operating officer Jim Mizes told M&C: “We will apply our same strategy to international expansion in the sense that we will only expand when we can find great franchise partners, who have experience in running US branded restaurants in their country.”
MOD, which was founded in 2008, stands for Made on Demand and is based on the idea of allowing customers to choose what they want without charging more. It currently operates c70 sites in the US.
Last year, Svenson told M&C that the group was targeting a UK launch and was starting discussions about finding an operating partner to take the brand into Britain
It is understood that the company, which closed a $40m funding round led by PWP Growth Equity, a private equity fund managed by Perella Weinberg Partners earlier this year, is being backed in its move into the UK market by Russell Chambers, the millionaire Credit Suisse adviser once dubbed “Tony Blair’s favourite banker”.
Blaze, which was launched in 2011, became the first of the rapidly growing crop of fast-casual pizza players in the US to hit the 50 units mark. Earlier this month, the company opened its 80th outpost, now covering 20 US States.
“We will open 30 more restaurants before the end of this year meaning we will end 2015 with 110 restaurants in 25 States,” said Mizes. “We have 44 franchise partners and have sold out every major metropolitan area in the US except for Seattle. So within three years of starting this company, we have sold out the country.”
Blaze is now also starting to dips its toes in international water as the company has signed a franchise agreement with Five Star Blaze Holdings Inc. to open at least 60 restaurants in Canada.
“Our first restaurant in Toronto will open in early October, which will be followed by additional restaurants in Calgary, Edmonton and so on,” Mizes said. Other international markets the group is eyeing out include the UK, the UAE Japan, China and the Philippines.
