The fast food restaurant industry is experiencing unprecedented growth globally. Fast foods include pizza, burger, chicken, sandwiches, fish and chips and various fatty ethnic foods.
The rising popularity of fast food restaurants is due to their ability to prepare delicious meals within a short time (Smith, 2007). However, most foods in fast food restaurants are not healthy.
People’s improved health awareness necessitates fast food restaurants to introduce more healthy foods in their menus. Lord of the Fries is one of the fast food restaurants that have adopted this strategy successfully. Mark Koronczyk, Sam Koronczyk, and Amanda Leigh Walker established Lord of the Fries in 2004.
Lord of the Fries restaurants are gaining increased popularity in Melbourne and other Australian cities. Increased popularity of Lord of the Fries restaurants necessitates it to venture into international markets to fuel its growth (Dempster, 2010).
Lord of the Fries should venture into the UK fast food market. The UK fast food market is one of the largest markets in Europe. The UK fast food market is twice the size of German fast food market, and thrice the size of the French fast food market (Humphries, 2005).
The UK fast food market is growing rapidly as the younger generation are embracing fast foods (Carter, 2004). Therefore, successful entry into the UK market would enable Lord of the Fries reap huge financial rewards.
To ensure successful entry into the UK fast food industry, Lord of the Fries should collaborate with Pret a Manger, one of the leading sandwich retail chains in the UK (Aaker, 2011). Jefrey Hyman established Pret a Manger in 1984.
The company opened its first shop in Hampstead, London. However, its current headquarters is in the City of Westminster, London. Pret a Manger has more than 200 chain stores in the UK. The company also has several stores in New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Hong Kong (Dimant et al, 2011).
Most operations of the company are in London, where the company has over 70% of its restaurants. Some of the meals in Pret a Manger’s restaurants include sandwiches, soups, coffee, salads, and various deserts (Gifford et al, 2007).
Pret a Manger targets the high-price-high-quality segment of the fast food market. The company targets urban professionals who have little spare time and are willing to pay more to access high quality meals within a short time.
Therefore, Pret a Manger gives special emphasis to the speed of preparation and quality of its meals. Customers spend an average of 90 seconds from the time they enter the Pret a Manger restaurants, to the time they leave after receiving their meals.
Pret a Manger offers a mix of expensive and cheap products in its menu. This helps in satisfying the heterogeneous needs of its heterogeneous clientele (Dimant et al, 2011).
One unique feature of Pret a Manger is the fact that it does not advertise its products. Pret a Manger relies on word of mouth advertisements by its customers. This saves the company huge finances that it would have used in advertisement.
However, for this strategy to work effectively, Pret a Manger strives to satisfy the needs of its existing customers, as retaining existing customers is much cheaper than attracting new customers (Dimant et al, 2011).
Pret a Manger also strives to meet the needs of its employees to enable them offer high quality services. In fact, Pret a Manger is one of the best companies to work for in the UK (Daft, 2007)
The ideals of Pret a Manger and those of Lord of the Fries are almost similar. Lord of the Fries also gives special emphasis to the quality of meals and services in its restaurants. The company gives special emphasis on the nutritional value of its meals.
The high quality of meals in Lord of the Fries restaurants has led to the increased popularity of the restaurants in Melbourne and other cities, despite the company not engaging in extensive advertising campaigns. Lord of the Fries relies on word of mouth advertising by its loyal customers.
In addition, Lord of the Fries and Pret a Manger target the same market segment. Both companies target young professionals who are willing to pay a little more to access high quality meals quickly.
Lord of the Fries would collaborate with Pret a Manger by forming a joint venture. Lord of the fries would engage in making delicious healthy fries and vegies, which are popular among the restaurant’s customers, whereas Pret a Manger would make sandwiches, soups, and salads.
The joint venture would satisfy the needs of customers who want to access meals quickly and those who would like to spend more time in the restaurants while taking their meals.
For the ultimate success of the joint venture, it is critical to develop a marketing plan. The internet, company records, and personal interviews with employees of the companies will provide vital data for conducting the research.
The internet will be the major source of data for Pret a Manger, whereas a combination of internet of internet sources, company records, and personal interviews with employees of Lord of the Fries would provide data for the marketing plan of the joint venture.
The total time for compiling data for the marketing plan of the joint venture would be three weeks.
References
Aaker, D.A. (2011). Brand relevance: making competitors irrelevant. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Carter, H.R. (2004). The essential guide for study abroad in the United Kingdom. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Daft, R.L. (2007). Organization theory and design. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
Dempster, L. (2010). The Australian veg food guide 2011. Brunswick: Aduki Independent Press.
Dimant, E., Dysart, M., Lanoix, K., Leung, T. & Lindner, S. (2011). Pret a Manger – a business model analysis. Norderstedt: Grin Verlag.
Gifford, J., McNally, P., Jane, L.G. & Jane, G. (2007). Pret a Manger: Food on the move. Millers Pont, NSW: Murdoch Books.
Humphreys, J. (2009). Fast food market share. Next generation food. Issue 7. Web.
Smith, A.F. (2007). The Oxford companion to American food and drink. Oxford: Oxford University press.