Burger King has struggled in recent years with both the recession and McDonald’sCorp., its biggest rival. Franchisees and analysts blame the chain’s problems on scant menu development, flawed pricing and an overworked strategy of focusing on so-called super fans, people aged 18 to 34 years old who account for half of all visits to Burger King outlets but have been disproportionately hurt by the economic slump.

Burger King Sold For $3.26 Billion To Private Investors

Plaintiffs allege in their Complaint that their ultimate start-up costs were $221,000.00, an amount they allege is substantially higher than any estimate they were provided by the Franchisor. ld. at ¶ 44. Throughout their Complaint, Plaintiffs also allege other, various misrepresentations by Defendant. Plaintiffs allege that these misrepresentations led to the unavoidable closing of their Raleigh Super Suppers franchise in September 2007. ld. at ¶ 83.

TUSCAN DOWNS, INC. v. THE CULINARY SCHOOL OF FORT WORTH, LLC

I seem to recall someone mentioning a year ago that this would be a big seller… I wonder who that was? But alas, some companies will always be a day late and a dollar short.

Pizza Hut’s almost year-old iPhone app has generated up to $7 million in sales and is now serving as a model for other restaurants trying to quickly move into the smartphone space.

Read more: Pizza Hut sees $7M in sales from iPhone app – Dallas Business Journal

I found one of the comments interesting:

Business has been brisk. Sales grew by 17% on a month-to-month basis in their first year of operation. Their customer base now numbers approximately 4,000 and they estimate they sell between 300 and 350 meals per week.

I suppose in these economic times anything more than 10 customers a month would be considered brisk, however when you calculate this out, 300 meals a week is about 50 customers (if they all bought 6 meals each) or around 200 customers a month. Of course, if all those were 12 meal packages it would be about 100 customers a month.

I guess that’s better than some, but not to be rude, I would hardly call that brisk. To be honest, I would see that as barely keeping above water. I really don’t see how you can pay off all your bills and have money left over for yourself with these figures. Again, there are plenty of jobs out there where you can work less and make $40k a year so if meal assembly isn’t making more than that for you it’s a dud business. At this rate I certainly don’t see the owners (and there’s two of them) making $40k a year each. Where’s the retirement plan?

And there’s quotes like this:

"You just need that one good idea to start a business and this one was it for us,"

 

I wish they would have kept looking.

Notice how it doesn’t say they’re selling the business and that’s it’s a great opportunity for someone else to come in and take over. They’re just dumping it. I keep asking, is Super Supper still a functioning franchise? Who’s running the show?

Now that the grinding months of summer are coming to a close I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more store closings. Summer is a horrible time for this industry, food costs are still going up, unemployment is still going up, people are still cutting costs and this luxury service won’t get back on the list.

So who else is looking to close a store before the end of the year?

I still find it ironic as hell that people who are too busy to cook for themselves seem to have all these recipes lying around that they’re willing to hand over to a company for some free food.

It used to be that a store would average around 300 people a month with most of them going for the full meal plan (10-12). What kind of figures are you seeing these days?

Great idea, but is it really working out these days? So many people just want to come in and pick-up the meals. Super Supper jumped on that bandwagon and turned everything over to meal pick-up. At one point Dream Dinners completely frowned on this idea, but there were plenty of owners who were tossing out the rules and doing whatever it took to make some money. And you can clearly see that many independent stores were offering both options all day long. No more sessions, just come in and make meals whenever you want or drop by and grab something.

So where do things stand now? Have owners ditched the whole meal assembly process and simply have customers grab pre-made meals or are you still encouraging customers to come in and make the meals for themselves?

On a more serious note, I doubt most owners are making a profit from their stores let alone something that even comes close to a teacher’s salary. I still firmly believe that if you’re not personally making at least $40k a year as a salary for yourself then you need to start devising an escape plan.

So, who’s gotten rich of meal assembly? Where are ya?

It’s been awhile since the point has been made so now is a good time to go back and show what buying a meal prep franchise WON’T GET YOU

- You don’t get a national marketing campaign
- You don’t get a franchise run by people with decades or even years worth of restaurant experience
- You don’t get discounted prices because your franchise buys in bulk
- You won’t see your company name listed in dozens of magazines and flyers unless YOU pay for it
- You won’t get handcrafted recipes put together by culinary experts. What you will get is a slew of recipes lifted from other published sources and submitted recipes from contests.
- You won’t get assistance from other store owners in your area since you’re in competition with each other
- You’re going to spend all your time in your store struggling to make a living instead of spending time with your family
- You don’t get guaranteed system for making money
- You won’t be working less hours than a 9-5 job in Corporate America
- You don’t get a repeatable system for bringing in customers
- You won’t be making more than the teacher who watches over your children and gets three months off every summer

Just keep those few things in mind if you have some wild notion that now might be the time to swoop in and make a run with a meal prep store.