Move over McDonald’s
Homegrown burger chain is fired up over a decade’s worth of healthy growth.
If Simon Crowe had decided differently, his customers might now be eating burgers at a “Bugger the Cow” outlet rather than the more palatable “Grill’d”.
“Ten years ago when we were setting up I was tossing up between two alternatives for names,” Crowe, founder of the burger chain, says. “I was trying to be either descriptive with Grill’d or provocative with Bugger the Cow. Looking back, I’m very thankful Bugger the Cow didn’t get over the line.”
But there’s more to business success than choosing the right name, especially when launching into the competitive fast-food sector – a market crowded with long-established brand names.
A report from Euromonitor – Fast Food in Australia Oct 2014 – puts McDonald’s as the largest brand in the sector, holding a value share of 25 per cent within fast food and 77 per cent within burger fast food in 2013.
But despite this dominance, Crowe felt there was a market for a different type of burger.
“When we first set up, the landscape was dominated by fast food that was low-end and had poor nutritional content,” Crowe says. “It was a great opportunity to reposition burgers in the Australian landscape in a manner that was guilt-free – because they are healthy.”
Grill’d is owned by Crowe and Geoff Bainbridge, who Crowe says has been with him since the beginning although doesn’t have an active role.
The company recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary; the first restaurant opened in Melbourne’s inner eastern suburb of Hawthorn in 2004. Now there are 91 Grill’d restaurants in every state and territory, except Northern Territory…..Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/entrepreneur/move-over-mcdonalds-20141106-11geuj.html#ixzz3KG3EeIJH
