Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Kathan Parikh: NZ Cinnabon and Auntie Anne’s pretzels franchise owner on bringing new brands to NZ

Transcript

Kathan Parikh: NZ Cinnabon and Auntie Anne’s pretzels franchise owner on bringing new brands to NZ · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It seems we Kiwis just can't get enough of American
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: food chains. Auntie Anne's and a particular ice cream brand,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: which I will mention in a minute, but you will
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: love if you've been to the States, opening their first
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: New Zealand stalls in Auckland's Newmarket this month. And let's
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: go to Kathan Preak, who is New Zealand Cinnabon franchise
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: owner and bringing Auntie Anne's pretzels to New Zealand. I've
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: not tried Auntie Anne's. Kathan, nice to have you on
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the program. Good morning.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Morning, Ryan. How are you?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Very well. What are the pretzels like?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: They're amazing. Great recipe coming out of the US. We
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: obviously use New Zealand ingredients to make sure that we
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: are following the guidelines in the recipe to get you
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: the great taste. But yeah, mostly we use nine, most
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: of the ingredients are from New Zealand. So yeah, it's
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: great tasting stuff.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: What about the ice creams?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Well, if you've been to the US, Carvel was the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: original soft serve. There's a big history behind the soft
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: serve and how it was made. For the longest time,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the ice cream was not able to be taken out
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: of the US, but finally they found SOPs. to bring
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: it out of the U.S., and it's lovely to bring
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: it to New Zealand. We love our ice cream, so
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: soft serve is just a different market. It's great to
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: have it there and showcase it to the New Zealanders.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And so is this a franchise that you are starting
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: for both of these in one store?
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. So the Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's, and Carvel are
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: owned by GoToFoods in the U.S., and they're all owned
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: by the same parent company, which allows us to– Me
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: being the franchisor for all three allows us to chop
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: and change of stores we want to build around New
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Zealand now where we can have a Cinnabon and an
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Auntie Anne's together, an Auntie Anne's, a Carvel together, and
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: something exciting that's coming up soon is a Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and a Carvel together all in one site.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, it sounds terrible for my hips. So you've got
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the franchise rights to all three in New Zealand. How
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: many stores have you got for Cinnabon at the moment?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: So at the moment, we've got two stores, one in
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Newmarket and one in Manukau, and we're looking to expand.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: We have done a lot of work on our supply
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: chain and a lot of work on product development as well.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: We originally made everything in the stores and scratch and stuff.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: We're still going to progress with that, but just with
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: ingredients that help us reduce labor costs, you know, the
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: hard work and everything that goes behind it, making the
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: pretzels and the Cinnabon, we've got ingredients that help us
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: reduce that and to help. speed up the process in
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: new markets.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Catherine, the appeal with all these American products, what's with that?
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's a lot of people going online
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and seeing what the Americans are doing on TikTok and
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: then wanting them here? How do you explain that as
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: opposed to just a Kiwi brand or a brand from elsewhere?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's more to do with people traveling
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: around the world. These brands have been well established everywhere.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Asia has a real big market as well with places
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: like Thailand having 200 stores, Philippines 100 stores. It's a
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: large market in the UK. The New Zealand population, we
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: do travel a lot. And we seem to– we go
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: to the UK a lot. We go to America a lot.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And so we just look– experience these brands everywhere. We
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: come back into New Zealand and we want them. And
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: so obviously this is a great opportunity to bring them
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: back and, you know, allow New Zealanders to enjoy that
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: part of America in New Zealand. All right.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: And Newmarket, we'll give it a try. Kathan Parig, who's
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: with us this morning, New Zealand Citibon franchise owner. For
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: News Talk ZB from 5 a.m.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.