Franchise Executives

Breakfast at KFC is coming to the Gold Coast and Melbourne following a successful trial at Sydney Airport. Sixteen restaurants across the Gold Coast and 13 restaurants in Melbourne CBD will serve a morning menu from 6am. Vanessa Rowed, CMO at KFC Australia, said the brand is staying true to its entrepreneurial spirit while continuing to reinvent to suit ever-changing consumer preferences and habits.

Grill’d has stepped into a new menu space, launching its first wraps range for the lunchtime crowd. Simon Crowe, founder of Grill’d, said moving into the lunch space is an opportunity to tap into customer trends. “As customer lunch habits continue to evolve, we saw an opportunity to deliver everything people love about Grill’d in a new way. “These wraps aren’t about moving away from burgers.

Just Cuts has named its top-performing salons, franchisees and team members at its annual awards night. The awards capped off Just Cuts’ four-day conference in Queenstown, the first national network event for new CEO Andrew Kidd. “Spending the past four days with our franchise owners reinforced what attracted me to the role: Just Cuts strong culture, a simple effective business model, and a real appetite to grow,” Kidd said.

Fast-food restaurant chain Pizza Hut is plotting a $10 million transformation in Australia to revive its fortunes. Launched by Flynn Group, the US-based master franchisor of Pizza Hut Australia, the investment will attempt to open 100 new stores and create around 3000 jobs. It will also bring a new-look store design, revamped menus and improved in-store technology.

Battery World has celebrated excellence in franchisee and network business performance, marketing, innovation and leadership. The retailer named its top performers at its annual conference in Brisbane. The Multi-Site Franchise Partner of the Year Award was presented to Matt, Peta, Andrew and Kimberley Milne, who run five locations in South Australia (Mildura, Berri, Gawler, Marion, Victor Harbor). Jared Clarke from Enoggera was named Battery World’s 2026 Franchise Partner of the Year.

Cosboa says new legislation on discretionary trust taxation would reduce the impact on SMEs compared with the Government’s original proposal, but issues remain around restructuring costs and the flexibility of existing trust structures. In the May Budget, the Government proposed a new 30 per cent minimum tax on discretionary trusts, estimated to raise almost $4.5 billion a year by the end of the decade.

Mexican fast food chain Guzman y Gomez (GYG) invests heavily in recruiting the right franchisees, putting prospects through a 12-month training program. Nikki Richardson, director of franchise operations at GYG, said “Our recruitment process is an intentionally long process, for all the right reasons. We are not looking for a business sale, we are looking for long term partners who will be with us for 10 or 20 years,” she said.

Do your fund records, disclosure documents and internal processes all tell the same story? For franchisors, levies for marketing and other shared purposes are not just money in and money out. Once you require franchisees to contribute money for a shared purpose, you are likely running what the Franchising Code calls a specific purpose fund – and the Code sets rules for how that money is recorded, used and explained. This is where problems often start.

Ice-cream retail chain Happy Pops is opening up to franchising, eight years after launching in Noosa. The family-owned business expanded into Brisbane, and Mooloolaba, and has just signed its first franchisee, in Toowoomba. Pastry chef Abigail Puttkammer and her art gallery husband Ian founded the niche ice cream business after moving to Noosa.

Plus Fitness parent Viva Leisure has unveiled its second corporate-owned Zoo Fit gym. The Mandurah gym launch follows the brand’s inaugural opening in Wanneroo in Western Australia in July. Zoo Fit senior general manager Ross Sutherland said “At Zoo Fit, we’re bringing together quality equipment, dedicated training areas and features like saunas, recovery spaces, ladies-only training and crèche facilities at a price that works for more people.