Smart50 rank: 18
Revenue: $36,027,000
Growth: 91.10%
Founders: Michael Logos, 35; Costa Anastasiadis, 30
Based: Victoria
Employees: 358
Industry: Retail trade
Website: www.crust.com.au
Many food retailers are focusing on lower-cost alternatives to see their way through the downturn. But Michael Logos and Costa Anastasiadis of Crust Gourmet Pizza Bars say they are attempting to improve quality at the same time.
"As yet, our sales haven't been impacted by the economic downturn, although we have seen an increase in costs from suppliers and there are certainly ways we can streamline our operations in order to cut costs. Over the last year, since the economic crisis kicked in, we've found that customers are cutting back, mainly by swapping eating out for eating in," says Anastasiadis.
"However, they're not willing to compromise on quality, so our premium Upper Crust offering has had high appeal. From a business point of view, we're a premium retailer rather than a volume-based business, so we operate on larger margins than many of our competitors. As a result we're well placed to cope with downturns."
Logos says the company moved to a franchise system, but it nearly cost the pair the business altogether.
To raise the funds required to develop the franchise, Anastasiadis and Logos put their own stores on the line as collateral. If the franchise model had failed, they would have lost everything - fortunately that didn't happen! "We spent too long as store operators before we saw the potential in franchising. It's easy to say with hindsight, but we should have had confidence in our vision earlier."
The company, which recorded $36 million in revenue during 2008-09 on average growth of 91%, aims to create a mix between fast-food pizza and gourmet varieties in an attempt to capitalise on demand for low-cost, high-quality food.
"We identified that the Australian pizza industry was made up of big chains which focused on high volume and fast delivery at the expense of product quality; or independents which offered high quality products, but with limited or no delivery service. Crust was created to combine the best of both worlds and offer customers a higher quality, healthier pizza delivered quickly and efficiently."
 |
 |
