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Thursday 12 September 2019
BUSINESS DAY
Retail &
consumer business COMPANY
Mr Bigg’s remodels restaurant raises ante in customers’ lifestyle experience BUNMI BAILEY
M
r Bigg’s, the Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) arm of UACN of Nigeria being run by its subsidiary, UAC Restaurants Limited, has begun the remodelling of its restaurants in a new initiative aimed at positively redefining the lifestyle of its numerous customers. The new business initiative centred on a remodelled restaurant structure is principally aimed at sustaining the heritage and leadership of the 33 years old outfit by raising customer service to a new level. The foremost indigenous and largest fast-growing QSR business in West Africa, with over 100 restaurants in Nigeria. On inception, the business operated a fully owned restaurant operations model before it transformed in partial franchise, and later into full franchise restaurant operations model.
The new initiative according to Ethel Mba, Marketing Manager, UACN Restaurants, will remodel the restaurants into a scintillating centre of high value having a 21st century ambience. Speaking at the pioneer model restaurant located at Northwest Filling Station by the Victoria Garden City, VGC, Lekki, Lagos, during a media tour of some restaurants on Wednesday, Mba added that the new approach promises to sustain excellence in wide variety of dishes, Patries and Confectionaries to the delight of its teeming consumers, which is the heritage of Mr Bigg’s. She explained that VGC outlet which was opened on the July 9, 2019 will remain the ‘signature poster’ for all the other restaurants in the new concept, aimed at bringing world class service and ambience to satisfy the taste of Nigerians in terms of meals. The VGC restaurants boosts of cozy ambience, call centers and kiddies corner backed up by excellent service
delivery professionals to give customers un-parallel experience in a friendly and family setting. The conveniences, the eating area and the lobby are world-class, coupled with a play area for the kids. Mba assured that apart from the VGC center, two more restaurants will spring up at Amuwo Odofin in Festac town and Abule Egba along Lagos Abeokuta Express Way very soon.
“The new restaurants will be patterned after the structure of the Lekki restaurant to deliver high-quality food and good ambience as the basic standard. Aside this, the menu range will be equal and well-balanced in terms of meal choices depending on customers’ tastes or new trends,” she said. Not a few customers agree that no restaurant can survive without offering quality food
and service aimed at giving patrons a satisfying experience. For example, Bunmi Olanrewaju who came to the VGC restaurant with her kids asserts that a good family restaurant is the one that offers comfort food that reminds people of the favourite meals their mothers cooked when they were kids. She recalled with excitement that products like the Mr
Bigg’s Meat Pie, Chicken Pie, and Scotch Eggs are legendary and still remains the best. Other patrons averred that in terms of comfort, the new outlet is well cut out with space wide enough to avoid congestion and movement interruptions. Mr Bigg’s history began with the coffee shops inside Kingsway Department Stores in the 1960s. In 1973, these shops were rebranded as Kingsway Rendezvous, which became Mr Bigg’s in 1986. The chain saw rapid expansion after becoming one of the first Nigerian companies to sell franchises to investors. In 2012, UAC Restaurants adopted a full franchising business model making it the first to establish company owned restaurants in other to grow the brand footprint and equity UAC Restaurants Ltd has since then owned and operated quick service restaurants with a range of products including her signature Meat pie, Chicken pie & Beef roll, Rice and Peppered Chicken, Ice cream, Pizza, and locals meals.
ECONOMY
Unfavourable tariff, forex policies pushes trade to negative growth territory …breaks positive growth trend in three quarters BUNMI BAILEY
T
he customs duty tariff hike combined with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s Foreign Exchange (FX) restriction on some items and the continuous weak purchasing power might have pushed the wholesale and retail trade sector to a negative growth territory in the second quarter of 2019, analysts say. The sector had remained on a positive trend over the past three quarters since Q3 2018. According to recently released National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) GDP report, it contracted marginally by 0.25 percent after recording positive growth of 0.85 percent, 1.02 percent and 0.98 percent in Q1 2019, Q4 2018 and Q3 2018 respectively.
“Growth in the trade sector has remained on a downtrend over the past three quarters after rebounding from a recession. However, looking at Q2 numbers, trade declined to - 0.25 percent can be attributed to the trade policies particularly regarding tariffs which have not been favourable. A key one is the adjustment of excise exchange rate from N305/$ to N326/$,” Ayorinde Akinloye, a consumer analyst at CSL Stockbrokers said. “And furthermore, domestic consumption still remains weak. Consumer income has virtually being stagnant in nominal terms while inflation remains in double digit territory. Thus once demand remains poor, trade would definitely weak,” Akinloye further said. Between the end of the first
quarter (January-March) and second quarter (April-June) of 2019, the CBN with immediate effect added textiles and oil palm effective to the 41 items that have remained ineligible for forex sale in the interbank market since June 2015. And in the third quarter (July-September), the bank further added milk and food items to it. In June, the Federal government increased the exchange rate for customs duty by 6.5 percent to N326/$ from N306/$ with immediate effect with the aim to generate more revenue. This recent development implies that importers and exporters whose products are valued and transacted in dollars will now have to pay additional N20 per dollar worth of goods. Johnson Chukwu, CEO,
Cowry Asset Management Limited said, “Consumer spending and disposal income is still low. People are only spending money on necessities. There is minimal discretionary spending going on in the country and this will continue to happen in the third quarter.” Data from the NBS on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by Income and Expenditure approach at 2010 purchaser’s values show that consumption expenditure of households has been declining at varying pace since it rose by 1.5 per cent in 2015. Also, the country’s per capita income declined to $2,049 in 2018 from $3,268 in 2014, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Ayo Akinwunmi at FSDH Merchant Bank said that people still don’t have money
to spend and that the trade sector is very important to the economy. “The trade sector corresponds to the manufacturing sector. What you are producing is not really being traded.” From the report, the manufacturing sector recorded a negative growth of -0.18 percent in Q2 2019 for the first time since q4 2017. Food, Beverage and Tobacco under manufacturing sector fell marginally 0.54 percentage points to 1.22 percent in Q2 2019 from 1.76 percent in Q1 2019. Some consumer companies or manufacturers like PZ Cussons, Unilever Guinness Plc and Nigerian Breweries Plc, have started to trade cash for credit in a bid to stimulate revenue by extending friendly credit conditions to distributors given their weaker sales
Team Lead: Bala Augie, Olufikayo Owoeye; Analyst: Bunmi Bailey; Graphics: Fifen Eyemisanre Famous www.businessday.ng
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and lower margin. “They are doing this to make distributors take enough goods from them,” said Abiola Gbemisola, research analyst at Lagos-based Chapel Hill Denham. “People don’t have money to spend and the companies are producing, so they have high inventory and a way of reducing their high inventory is to give their goods on credit,” Gbemisola posited. The sector exited recession for the first time in 2018 after recording two negative growth rates. It grew by 0.98 percent in Q3 2018 after contracting by -2.14 percent and -2.57 percent in Q2 and Q1 respectively. Then, analysts attributed it to the CBN intervention of improving the supply of dollars in the FX market for businesses generally.