Domino’s Pizza franchise owner DP Poland (LON:DPP) has opened its fiftieth store in the country, an event hailed as a major milestone by chief executive Peter Shaw.
DPP now has outlets in 21 cities: its first store opened in Warsaw in 2011.
Shaw added the establishment of Domino's as a national brand in Poland is moving “from vision to reality."
“The key thing about this business is getting to critical mass,” he told Proactive.
“And getting to between 50-100 stores that’s where the business will really start singing.”
DPP’s pace of store openings has quickened over the past twelve months.
Fifteen new outlets have already opened this year, compared to twelve in the previous period, and four more are under construction.
It is the fastest pace of opening to date, added Shaw.
“It’s an unprecedented speed of roll-out.
Building footprint
“The name of the game is about driving sales and footprint and EBITDA [underlying profits] will follow.
“As you open new stores you have costs in those and most don’t hit break even for a little while,” he explained.
“It’s not a story of group EBITDA it’s about roll-out and sales growth.”
Poland’s strong economic growth is helping DPP, he added.
The economy there is expected grow by more than 4% this year and the country is on the verge of being upgraded to ‘developed’ from ‘developing’.
And there is a lot more pizza to be sold, says Shaw.
“There are 43 towns and cities with a population of least 90,000, we are in 21.”
DP Poland has the exclusive right to develop, operate and sub-franchise Domino's Pizza stores in Poland.
Of the 50 stores, 26 are corporately managed, two are under management contract and 22 are sub-franchised.
DP Poland has launched promotions across its store estate to celebrate the landmark store, which is in Olsztyn, a town with 170,000 people 200km north of Warsaw.
Shaw added that a second commissary is now fully operational and supplying a large proportion of stores with the potential to supply up to 150 stores.
Shares eased 0.7p to 39.3p.
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