Burgerfuel

[Sideshow Bob]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11865675

[Baa_Baa]

Josef Robbers is certainly audacious taking on the USA, home of the hamburger. I'm not sure Burgerfuel (the burger, the brand, marketing, the image, the retail model, commercials etc) is good enough to succeed in the USA, but it's not his money anyway, is it. Good luck to holders.

[silverblizzard888]

Store is officially open now ... a bit late in the day for a market announcement but hopefully it's seen as positive

Its just a 'soft' opening, not quite officially opened yet, but I'm sure its not far off that.

Josef Robbers is certainly audacious taking on the USA, home of the hamburger. I'm not sure Burgerfuel (the burger, the brand, marketing, the image, the retail model, commercials etc) is good enough to succeed in the USA, but it's not his money anyway, is it. Good luck to holders.

Actually it majority is, considering Josef Roberts and Chris Mason have a joint shareholding of 71.62% that's a large part of their net worth on the line. Roberts has identified Indianapolis as less of a competitive burger market, so you never know it could do pretty well, they have certainly took the time to plan this out.

[minimoke]

I think this is a very good stress test on the staff and not taking any chances of error on opening day.
."[/B]

They aren't testing. If they are I'd be very worried - testing should be done before going to consumer. It's a $100 marketing ploy

[ratkin]

Josef Robbers is certainly audacious taking on the USA, home of the hamburger. I'm not sure Burgerfuel (the burger, the brand, marketing, the image, the retail model, commercials etc) is good enough to succeed in the USA, but it's not his money anyway, is it. Good luck to holders.

They will need to up the portion sizes.
Six chips and an undersized burger, all for 15 bucks just wont do

[Balance]

Its just a 'soft' opening, not quite officially opened yet, but I'm sure its not far off that.

Actually it majority is, considering Josef Roberts and Chris Mason have a joint shareholding of 71.62% that's a large part of their net worth on the line. Roberts has identified Indianapolis as less of a competitive burger market, so you never know it could do pretty well, they have certainly took the time to plan this out.

Let's wish them well. It will be great for NZ to have a home grown fast food company succeed in the States.

Skepticism and cynicism are to be expected given the failure of NZ companies when embarking on expansion overseas - Pumpkin Patch comes to mind immediately, Warehouse the next.

So matter of wait and see.

[hogiela]

Let's wish them well. It will be great for NZ to have a home grown fast food company succeed in the States.

Skepticism and cynicism are to be expected given the failure of NZ companies when embarking on expansion overseas - Pumpkin Patch comes to mind immediately, Warehouse the next.

So matter of wait and see.

So far they seem to be "stubborn" enough to make it work .... eventually .... hopefully once the US market is cranking they'll head back into Australia with an improved delivering ... still a very risky investment but would be nice to see a bit more volume traded on the market!

[silverblizzard888]

They aren't testing. If they are I'd be very worried - testing should be done before going to consumer. It's a $100 marketing ploy

Its actually pretty normal for restaurants to test our their stores by doing promotions on open because theres a lot of inefficiencies that aren't spotted until put to the sword of the public consumer and if the foods free can't exactly complain that much and that line outside the door waiting for free food definitely a good promo for them. They limited the amount of burgers serve that day and number of people that could enter. Some businesses can really mess up customer impression by being too busy first couple of weeks with new staff who haven't quite gotten their feet running on the ground yet and unsorted inefficiencies and then the months ahead be pretty empty. So its a very safe way Burgerfuel is treading. You gotta wonder why restaurants have such a high failure rate right? Normally a bunch of people who can cook tasty food but have low ability of management skills, unfortunately sometimes its both.

Let's wish them well. It will be great for NZ to have a home grown fast food company succeed in the States.

Skepticism and cynicism are to be expected given the failure of NZ companies when embarking on expansion overseas - Pumpkin Patch comes to mind immediately, Warehouse the next.

So matter of wait and see.

Yeah agreed NZ companies tend to get slaughtered overseas because of their huge pride in their products and on the back of success at home, but doing well in a sheeps barn isn't the same out in the wild. Even Xero put in a few wrong steps in North America, but have steadied themselves since. Its very important to understand markets overseas can be very different and understand what the consumer really wants. I think Burgerfuel did well in NZ and followed that up by going to the Middle East which NZ product has a good name there too, though they certainly got taught a lesson in Australia where NZ beef isn't anything special and got put to the sword by the Aussies for their pricing too. I think they have learnt some stuff from Aus and with a Franchise Brand director on board they have had time and advice on how to approach consumers in America, gotta be dramatic and gotta make a splash!

[Balance]

Yeah agreed NZ companies tend to get slaughtered overseas because of their huge pride in their products and on the back of success at home, but doing well in a sheeps barn isn't the same out in the wild. Even Xero put in a few wrong steps in North America, but have steadied themselves since. Its very important to understand markets overseas can be very different and understand what the consumer really wants. I think Burgerfuel did well in NZ and followed that up by going to the Middle East which NZ product has a good name there too, though they certainly got taught a lesson in Australia where NZ beef isn't anything special and got put to the sword by the Aussies for their pricing too. I think they have learnt some stuff from Aus and with a Franchise Brand director on board they have had time and advice on how to approach consumers in America, gotta be dramatic and gotta make a splash!

Indeed - better they do it slow and steady rather than with a big slash and lose their shirt.

BTW, I know of a NZer who copied the 'HELL' pizza concept to US and rebrabd as 'Lucifer' pizza. By all accounts, doing well!

[silverblizzard888]

Indeed - better they do it slow and steady rather than with a big slash and lose their shirt.

BTW, I know of a NZer who copied the 'HELL' pizza concept to US and rebrabd as 'Lucifer' pizza. By all accounts, doing well!

In Burgerfuel management you have a team of cautious managers watching each step they take, heck company has no debt and even sticks mostly to a franchising plan to hedge out risk. I like their creative marketing and brand build up, though I haven't found them faultless though:

I'd like to see more stand-alone stores going forward given they have a built brand in NZ and possibly owned by the company too.
I'd like to see meal package combos presented better to consumers (think KFC, McDonalds, Wendys, Carls Jr) thats how you really sell extra product.
I'd like to see a 'permanent' fish burger on the menu somewhere too.
I'd like better communications with shareholders, preferably quarterly.
I'd think packaging could be more refined, a lot of large bags for burgers and meal bags being used for small items. (Not sure if there are any cost advantages though it seems wasteful in a way.

Given Burgerfuel has identified they have a product that does well in low burger competitive markets and high value perception of NZ beef you'd think they should be opening in countries that follow the NZ and Middle East approach, why aren't countries in Asia on the map before AUS and US? They do say money is made doing business when and where no one else is.

NZ ideas can be great, though most just don't know how to sell. Usually expect consumers to like their product and throw money at them.