Store Closings and Meal Prep Failures

September 11th, 2009 |

To be sarcastic it seems like the Back to School rush didn’t go so well since another 32 companies and a total of 115 stores have shut their doors. It seems the summer was not kind.

Previously, Dream Dinners and Super Suppers were neck and neck as they raced to open the most stores possible. They’re still neck and neck, but now it’s in store closings. Dream Dinners saw another 15 stores go to the wayside (read owners stopped paying royalties and went bankrupt) while Super Suppers took the lead with 20 lost stores.

While the numbers were never truly confirmed, for the sake of argument let’s say each company had 210 stores in their flock. Dream Dinners is now showing less than 140 as being open, while Super Suppers has dropped to a mere 64 stores still open. And just to use my poking stick, Dream Dinners has lost 40 stores since Darin made his bold claim they still had 180 open!

The Decline Continues

It’s also interesting to note, if you look at the first comment in that same article, questions were raised as to how Darin was counting and the point was made the number of stores open was actually closer to 135 (a pretty big discrepancy). So now that the numbers actually appear to be a lot closer to 135, does that suggest prophecy or trickery with the numbers? Was Dream Dinners overstating their position back in October of last year? Or did Guest just hit the nail on the head?

Let’s also keep in mind with all the Dream Dinners store closings that some of those used to be the highest grossing stores in the country. What used to be the #1 store a year or so ago, is now closed and out of business. Boom to bust as they say.

Further, if Super Suppers actually had 210 stores in their ranks and now have 64 that turns out to be a staggering 69% failure rate!

Just to make the point: 70% of all Super Suppers stores have failed!

And if there really were 1,400 meal assembly stores open at one point, well, 50% of those have shut down now. Less than 650 of those actually remain open today.

It would seem no matter how you try to spin the numbers; this business is in its final hours. The decline has been steady and unending. It’s hard to believe Super Suppers will survive the year. And if they do, they will simply be the walking dead and surely falter within the first couple of months of the New Year.

Those kids at Dream Dinners are struggling to hang on, but they’re still losing 2-3 stores a month.

So, are you ready to buy a meal prep franchise?