Food Concepts Plc was incorporated on 6 December 1999 as Food Concepts & Entertainment Limited and commenced operations in 2000. The Company was converted from a Private Limited Liability Company into a Public Limited Liability Company and the Company’s name was subsequently changed to Food Concepts Plc. by a Special Resolution dated 10 May 2009.
Following its incorporation, Food Concepts secured franchises from reputable South African Quick Service Restaurants operators to manage and operate their brands in Nigeria. The Company subsequently acquired and developed other Brands, such as, Chicken Republic, PieXpress, Butterfield and Yum Yum.
Following a corporate restructuring and divestment, the Company now owns and operates the Chicken Republic and PieXpress brands as its proprietary food brands.
Chicken Republic is currently trading in 80 locations across Nigeria and Ghana, it will operate >100 Chicken Republic restaurants by the end of 2020 and has plans in place to operate >300 stores by the end of 2023.
PieXpress began trading in 2019 and we presently operate 4 kiosks. We will open another 6 units by the end of the year, with plans in place to operate 150 Pie Express units by the end of 2023.
Food Concepts also owns a 35.61% stake in Food Concepts Pioneer Limited, which continues to hold the Butterfield and Yum Yum brands and runs plant bakeries producing bread, pies, sausage rolls and chin-chin for the mass market.
“To be the most loved quick service restaurant and baked goods brands across West Africa”
“To remain relevant as we stretch our limits to go above and beyond to deliver excellent customer experiences, great tasting products and every day affordable value.”
People Capability Always is a driving force in our business. Our Human Resources Division trains, develops, recognises and rewards our people, whilst enriching lives and growing our business in the process. We strongly believe that our people approach is fundamental to achieving our vision.
On this basis, our Values are entwined with our Vision statement represented by the ‘LOVED’ acronym. These Values are the foundation of behaviours we aim to instil in all our employees and is the golden thread that runs through everything we do.
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LOVEWe are passionate, relevant, caring, respectful and committed. |
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OWNERSHIPWe act with integrity and take pride in ourselves, our company and country. |
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VALUEWe add value to everyone and in everything we do. |
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EXECUTIONExecution is what we do best. |
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DRIVEWe take initiative and push forward to exceed expectations and achieve our goals. |
People Capability Always is based on the idea that you don’t build a business, you build people and people build the business. This is the ideology of the Human Resources Department, working together with the divisions, to actualise the objectives and goals of the organisation. On this basis, we train, develop talent, recognise and reward our people, whilst enriching their lives and growing our business in the process.
Our Recruitment Philosophy
Food Concepts is committed to creating a diverse environment across our business and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and promotion without regard to race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability or age.
Recognition & Reward
As the business grows, we continually seek opportunities to reward our people for their contribution and commitment. We pay our staff competitive salaries and offer various incentives programmes. For those working in revenue generating divisions, your reward is in your hands! The harder you work towards delivering your targets the more you earn. We also have a Product of the Month incentive, which is paid to store employees who have exceeded their sales targets, as well as, an employee of the month incentive, which is based on a peer-to-peer nomination system. Furthermore, each year, all employees across divisions have the opportunity to earn a performance bonus, which is based on a combination of company, division and individual performance.
Training & Development
We have a state-of-the-art Training Centre, through which we have trained over 1,000 employees. At Food Concepts, all new employees (regardless of their position in the organisation) start their induction at the heartbeat of our business…in our stores. We have a competent workforce with a uniquely designed learning platform designed to enable career growth. Our world of innovation places great value in recruiting, retaining, developing and rewarding the highly talented individuals who takes charge of their career whilst we provide the enabling environment to nurture it.
The Operations Team aims to deliver year-on-year profitability growth through growing our top line sales and managing our operating expenses. We do this by ensuring that we are focused on delivering great customer service, great product quality and having our products available always to our customers. In addition, we ensure that our food is freshly prepared and sold at affordable prices to our customers.
The five building blocks of the Operations Division are:
1.Building People Capability
We focus on building people capability at all levels through internal development of our people as well as recruiting and growing great talent for our business. In addition, we ensure that performance management is key in ensuring that we deliver great performance at all levels in Operations. Finally, recognition is a culture in our business, and we make it a duty to recognise at every opportunity in our Operations team.
2. Customer Service
Customers are extremely important to us, so we work with our Training Team in ensuring that our team members and store management teams are well trained and coached in delivering great customer service with each transaction, every day. Our team ensure that customers will want to come back over and over through hospitable service, clean and well-maintained restaurants, quick service, and great quality products that are always available.
3. Sales & Profit Growth
Our motto is “Sales is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is king”. We grow sales by ensuring great customer service through transaction and ticket average growth; and grow our bottom-line profit through controlling our operational expenditure.
4. Financial and Process Discipline
Ensuring that great thought process and execution in all we do is important to us and this is where clear discipline comes in. We ensure that all our processes are always followed, and this delivers discipline in our financial management.
5. Operational Excellence
We drive operational standards, we build Store and Area Management capability, quarterly financial and operational audits and we deliver consistent recipes in all our restaurants.
Our Property Development & Franchising division continues to grow, with the addition of new franchise stores, the opening of new company stores and the upgrading and maintenance of existing stores. All three activities, contribute to our performance and enhance stakeholder experience for franchisees, employees, partners and shareholders alike.
We have been able to effectively manage our setup costs, despite the devaluation of the Naira and the harsh economic conditions. Among others, bulk purchase of key assets has allowed us to negotiate lucrative discounts, which has contributed to greater returns on investments.
We have and will continue to grow the capacity of both people and other resources within this division to ensure a solid, pre-emptive, responsive and effective strategic implementation plan that delivers ROI.
Our strategic focus areas moving forward include:
The Supply Chain Division (SCD) continues to grow and support the business by catering for the increased demand and delivery of great tasting, high quality products to our stores “On Time in Full”. Key activities that fall under SCD include:
Procurement
The Procurement function is centralised and is responsible for the sourcing and purchasing of all food and packaging products, equipment and other restaurant supplies. The mission of the unit is to provide the “lowest possible sustainable store-delivered prices” for restaurant products and equipment. To achieve this, the unit leverages on the system’s scale to drive cost savings and effectiveness in its day-to-day function.
We work closely with suppliers to encourage innovation, assure best practices and drive continuous improvement. Leveraging scale, supply chain infrastructure and risk management strategies, the division also collaborates with suppliers towards achieving competitive, predictable food and packaging costs over the long term.
Warehousing and Distribution Unit
The business operates a hub and spoke network model across the country. This is designed to reduce transportation costs, improve cycle times and reduce inventory in the restaurants and at the warehouses. Delivery of stock items to the stores are carried out through the deployment of Company-owned fleet and third-party Logistics Service Providers to ensure timely and effective distribution to the stores.
Pie Production Unit
Food Concepts operates ten strategically positioned pie production facilities around the country. These facilities are set up to satisfy our customers’ needs for fresh and tasty baked products via our Chicken Republic and Pie Xpress stores, as well as to meet the increasing demand for bulk catering requests.
Central Kitchen
Our Central Kitchen produces the spices that are used in the production of Chicken Republic soulfully spiced meals. The Central Kitchen brings to the fore several benefits such as:
Our Central Kitchen supports all Chicken Republic and PieXpress stores, both company-owned and franchised. We produce semi-finished and finished items and deliver fresh vegetables to Lagos stores.
The Shared Services Division serves as the bedrock of the organisation as it focuses on the consolidated performance and position of the organisation, its subsidiaries, its associated companies and related entities.
The division provides the requisite support to the business and the other divisions to achieve the overall objective of maximising profitability through sales growth and reduced cost. The division is responsible for driving the overall company strategy summarised in the budgets, forecast and business plans and ensures the monitoring and achievement of the company’s overall strategy.
The Shared Services Division is responsible for raising capital to support the business strategy and growth plans, as well as to ensure the effective management of working capital, which enables smooth operation of the business.
It is also responsible for generating investment income through effective treasury operations and managing of the company’s information technology. The division ensures that proper risk management procedures are in place within the organisation to identify and manage the risks in the business and that policies, controls and procedures are in place to ensure that the organisation’s overall objectives are met.
Shared Services is also responsible for new product development, as well as, quality assurance (including both ISO and legal compliance), whilst ensuring that the company’s products are effectively communicated through marketing activities to third parties.
The division consists of the following departments:
The finance department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
The business intelligence department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
The risk & compliance department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
The quality department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
The admin department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
The Legal department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
The IT department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
The marketing department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
The internal audit department is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve the organisation’s operations. The head of this department reports directly to the audit committee of the board to maintain its independence. The internal audit department is responsible for the following key activities within the organisation:
Health, Safety and consumer protection are of critical importance to Food Concepts.
We are thus proud to announce that after being thoroughly assessed, we were found to be compliant and were awarded ISO22000:2018 Food Safety Management System certification, within the scope of providing ready to eat chicken products, burgers, sandwiches and meals.
ISO22000:2018 is the latest certification, based on a Food Safety Management System that can be applied to any organisation in the food chain – from farm to fork.
OUR FOOTPRINT
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