Max’s Group Inc. (MGI), the country’s largest casual dining restaurant operator, said the pandemic pushed the company to go into food manufacturing and offer ready-to-cook meals.
The company’s P1-billion No Bia Food Manufacturing and Distribution Center, which folded all its previous three commissaries into one location, has the capability to export some of the items being churned out by the facility to other Asia Pacific branches of the group.
MGI Supply Chain Management director Robeson Mateo said the facility, which occupies some two hectares of land in Carmona, Cavite, can supply the needs of other companies outside of the Max’s Group since it is a standalone company of Max’s.
The commissary can churn out about 2,000 metric tons of food per month and has the capability to scale its operations when needed.
“Our supply chain is end to end. We’re bringing the supply chain closer to both the source and the market. We export some of the pre mixes to several of our locations in Southeast Asia as well as in the Visayas and Mindanao where volumes are not that big but continuity has to happen,” Mateo said.
He said the company has not been exporting on larger scale, such as its ready-to-cook items like Max’s Restaurant’s fried chicken or Dencio’s Grill’s sisig. Its exports are currently limited to pre-mixes for its caramel bars and ensaymada.
Max’s officials said its food manufacturing operation is still in at a nascent stage, and just occupies some 10 percent of the facility’s production. There are, however, plans to export the branded ready-to-cook products in about two years when the market matures.
The Covid-19 pandemic has seen the ready-to-cook or ready-cooked items of many fast food companies and restaurants in the freezers of grocery stores, such as marinated fried chickens, as dining in restaurants was not allowed by the government.
When Max’s inaugurated the facility last year, it needed to boost its production immediately despite the lockdown measures. The company’s revenues are derived mostly from dine-in customers.
Max’s is also pushing the franchise strategy, that now includes cloud kitchen, despite its cautious optimism on its recovery as its stable of brands remains appealing to customers.
“And easily more than half of those applying (for a Max’s franchise) have their own lots, you know, they have their own space,” Dave Fuentebella, Max’s director, said during the company’s briefing.
“What makes it more interesting to them is that the new store models are more accommodating, in terms of capex, because the spend base in the new store models is about half of what it was before. And therefore in terms of returns, it’s more attractive to the franchisee.”
Cloud kitchen operates like a regular restaurant but it does not have dine-in facilities and the food is mainly for deliveries.
Fuentebella said the group has shifted its approach in its store expansions from a brick and mortar concept to a point of access, which makes expansion much faster.
For the year, Max’s is looking to open 143 point of access stores, and 60 brick and mortar stores, of which nine will be in North America while the rest will be put up in the Philippines.
“Then you add on around 50 delivered fresh daily formats of Krispy Kreme, and around 33 cloud kitchens,” Fuentebella said.
“So franchising is not just confined to totally building a new store. Of course, it’s part of the deal. It also includes, by the way, franchising of cloud kitchens, which of course, we have a number in the market to date. So that’s a new format for the current franchisees to consider.”
Image credits: Contributed photo