Burger King Plans More Outlets in Japan
March 28, 2011
TOKYO -- Burger King Corp., which recently announced a joint venture with Japan Tobacco Inc., is aiming to open as many as 200 directly owned or franchised restaurants in Japan in the medium-to-long term, a senior Burger King executive said. Davina Tafoya, senior vice president, said the immediate goal of the joint venture -- Burger King Japan Co. -- is to convert 34 Morinaga Love restaurants, which the company took over from Restaurant Morinaga in June, into Burger King outlets. After that, he said Burgos Kirby, a U.S. unit of U.K.-based Grand Metropolitan PLC, ``will focus on cultivating franchise relationships with large organizations capable of managing a number of restaurants,'' rather than looking for individual mom-and-pop franchise operators. Such organizations, he said, could be existing retailers, hotels or gas stations that want to convert part of their business space for Burger King, he said. ``That's a successful formula across Europe, in the U.S. and Australia.'' Asked if Burger King Japan will follow up with acquisitions of other restaurant chains, Mr. Tafoya was hopeful. ``Who knows?'' he said. ``If there are other operators who aren't doing very well ... they may well want to convert to Burger King; it happens in other parts of the world; there is no reason why it shouldn't happen here.'' Burger King Japan is equally owned by Grand Metropolitan and Japan Tobacco.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
