Spur To Whet Africa’s Growing Fast Food Appetite With More Restaurant

Spur Corporation CEO, Pierre van Tonder, on Thursday said plans are underway to expand its South African fast-food chain business, Captain DoRegos, across the rest of the country.

Spur, which also owns Panarottis and John Dory’s, hopes to ratchet up its presence in the fast-food quick service restaurants (QSR) business.

"We think we can increase the chain from the current base of 75 stores to between 120 and 130 by expanding into the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga markets in the next five years," van Tonder said.

"We are also looking at Maputo, Gabarone and other African opportunities," he added.

The company is also looking forward to grow into the rest of the African market, having opened in Namibia and Mauritius. It plans to open 26 new restaurants in the next 12-18 months in Nigeria, Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania and the Seychelles.

Pierre van Tonder had hinted that hotel, supermarket and retail development has been one of the major factors driving expansion.

Spur bought the Captain DoRegos — which specialises in "value-orientated" take-away fare such as chicken, seafood and burgers in May 2012 for R30m.

Captain DoRegos, under Spur, generated restaurant sales of R191m and franchise fees of R9m. The franchise also contributed immensely (R73m) to Spur’s manufacturing and distribution center sales revenue of about 50 percent to R214m in the year to end June.

Spur CEO hopes this contribution will continue to grow in years to come with 11 new Captain DoRegos outlets opened during the financial year and another seven scheduled for opening in the first half of the new financial year.