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🍟 Week 18: Toppers Pizza

www.franchisebreakdowns.com

🍟 Week 18: Toppers Pizza

A pizza franchise + ANOTHER acquisition

Nov 29, 2021
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🍟 Week 18: Toppers Pizza

www.franchisebreakdowns.com

Welcome to The Wolf Report, a 2x/week email covering up & coming franchises & small business entrepreneur’s. If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed, you can do so here:

To franchise fans,

Good morning and hope you had a great weekend filled with turkey, friends, and family. Also, happy Hanukkah to those who started celebrating last night!

If you celebrate Christmas and are now scrambling because you haven’t bought any presents yet despite the massive supply chain issues, here is a great gift guide from the team at Morning Brew that always gives me some good ideas!

Today’s Rundown:

  • Headlines: Another acquisition

  • Breakdown: Toppers Pizza

  • Twitter Watch: The Story of Franchise Legend Den Fujita

Let’s get to it!

Franchise Headlines

Franchise Group Acquires W.S. Badcock

HOME - Franchise Group, Inc.

The Players

Franchise Group, the owner of brands like Pet Supplies Plus, The Vitamin Shoppe, and more - just acquired home furnishing company W.S. Badcock for $580M💰💰

Founded in 1904, W.S. Badcock Corporation operates 383 stores in eight southeastern states comprised of 68 corporate locations and 315 independent dealer owned stores.

The Scoop

Another big money acquisition in the franchise world! To me (part of) the beauty of franchising is how much it increases an entrepreneur’s surface area for luck.

If you start a business, franchise it, and grow your brand via your franchisees locations - quite simply people just start noticing. That could lead to more interest from franchisees, from PE Groups looking to make investments, or in this case, massive holding companies looking to acquire brands outright.

You can read the press release here.

More Headlines

Jack in the Box Invests in Robotics to Curb Labor Issues
Robotics to replace labor will be a trend that will continue with the big players

Papa Johns to Grow in Kenya & Uganda
The pizza giant only has so many markets that they haven’t entered yet

Breakdown: Toppers Pizza

Image

Fast Facts

Background

  • Founded in 1991; franchising since 2000

  • Based in Wisconsin; 67 units open

  • Toppers’ menu features specialty pizzas with toppings such as oven-roasted tomatoes, mac 'n cheese and tater tots, along with the company's signature cheesy breadsticks called Topperstix

Fees + Investment

  • Royalty: 5.5% of gross sales

  • Brand Fund: 3.3% of gross sales

  • Franchise Fee: $30,000

  • Initial Investment: $314,075 - $530,000

Financial Performance

  • The below table illustrates average gross sales for Toppers units in 2020

The Wolf’s Take 🍟 

Toppers was founded by Scott Gittrich, an ex-Dominos employee, who started working there while attending the University of Illinois in 1984. He worked his way up to director of operations for a group of Domino's franchises before deciding in 1991 to go on his own in the pizza biz by founding Toppers.

Aside from the cool story of the founder, I like the numbers too. They show consistency amongst their 67 locations, as well as a steady increase the longer your store remains open.

Dominos is the clear benchmark every pizza franchise should be comparing themselves to - they have an initial investment of $152k-$668k, and an estimated avg annual revenue of $1,177,696 per location.

Comparing them to Toppers, we see that the Toppers investment has a lower ceiling, and after a few years you aren’t too far off from Dominos revenue. To me this is absolutely worth exploring if you’re interested in owning a pizza restaurant!

Recent News

  • Toppers Pizza Grabs Minority Investment From PE Firm

  • Toppers Closes Out Q3 With 20% Growth In Year-Over-Year Sales

Twitter Watch 👀

Twitter avatar for @franchisewolf
The Wolf of Franchises 🍟 @franchisewolf
Masayoshi Son is famous for founding SoftBank & the tech investments he's made through his Vision Fund. But when he was 16 years old, his idol wasn't a leading technology entrepreneur, it was the man who brought McDonald's to Japan. This is the story of Den Fujita 👇🧵
Image
7:18 PM ∙ Nov 28, 2021
32Likes6Retweets

I wrote this thread yesterday, and it is by far my favorite story I’ve ever written about in franchising. It tells the story of the man who brought McDonald’s to Japan.

Follow @franchisewolf and give it a read!

That’s it for this edition of The Wolf Report. Feel free to reply with any questions or feedback, or leave a comment. If someone sent this your way and you haven’t subscribed yet, you can also do that below. Thanks and see you next week!

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NOTICE REGARDING FRANCHISE INFORMATION

The Wolf of Franchises does NOT guarantee the financial performance of any franchise mentioned. The decision to purchase a licensed affiliate or franchise must be based on your own independent research. The Wolf of Franchises is not liable for any representation made by an affiliate, associate, marketing material, or Franchise Disclosure Document of a franchise with respect to real estate, financial, operations, or marketing performance of the business being acquired.

This information is not intended as an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, a franchise. It is for informational purposes only, and any financial data is based upon information provided by franchises in their respective Franchise Disclosure Document. The offer of a franchise can only be made through the delivery of a franchise disclosure document, from a certified seller of the brand, which The Wolf of Franchises makes no claim to be. Do not consider any information here as a guarantee of financial performance. The Wolf of Franchises has no affiliation or relationship of any kind with any of the brands covered in this newsletter, but simply provides data that is publicly available online or in Franchise Disclosure Documents.

All data from Franchise Disclosure Document’s is based on past performance, and if you were to purchase a franchise covered in the Wolf of Franchises newsletter, there is absolutely no guarantee that your business will perform similarly to existing owners of said franchise.

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🍟 Week 18: Toppers Pizza

www.franchisebreakdowns.com
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