Freshii: making healthy food convenient and affordable

Growing consumer demand for fresh and healthy food and the trend to ‘foodvenience’, where foodservice meets convenience retailing, is fueling expansion for the Canadian restaurant brand Freshii.

Founded in 2005 by entrepreneur Matthew Corrin, Freshii takes its inspiration from the fresh food offer at ‘mom and pop’ delis but married with strong branding and great customer service.

“When I lived in New York City, the delis and tea stores were very ubiquitous in Manhattan,” Corrin recalls. “Many, a decade ago, had very fresh food but the service was underwhelming and the branding quite dull. They were not making the most of the fresh opportunity.

“I wanted to take fresh and build a model that was scalable, branded and would improve the way people eat around the world,” he says.

Global footprint

Freshii, a franchise operation, is succeeding in that mission. It has just opened its 300th restaurant and has a presence in 15 countries around the world.

2017 will see the brand enter the UK market. It already has a growing presence in Ireland through a partnership with Applegreen and is set to appear on the retailer’s UK forecourts.

Sweden, Central and South America, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Kuwait are key markets for the brand too, which has also just launched its first group of stores in Australia.

“We are truly global,” asserts Corrin, who insists there’s no specific chain size in mind but rather an aim to build a brand in the long term to make healthy eating affordable around the world.

That said, he is quick to point out the scale of the competitive set: 45,000 Subways and some 40,000 McDonald’s restaurants.

“If we reach our goals and the trends for health and wellness continue, we will have some version of that,” he says. “I think Freshii does work everywhere – it’s relevant globally but it’s about finding the right team to drive the right culture.”

Delivering a consistent brand experience in global markets is key in Freshii’s brand building strategy but also a challenge.

“It’s our point of difference. We spend all of our time thinking about how to standardise the brand,” Corrin says. “But it’s not about bringing a Big Mac to every country, it’s bringing health and wellness rather than a specific menu or ingredient,” he explains.

That philosophy carries through to the store design, where the food is clearly hero.

“We try to keep the store clean and simple so that the focus is on the food. It’s also a timeless look so that over the long term don’t have to spend too much money,” Corrin says.

Trend to health and wellness

And there’s no one better placed than Corrin to spread the word – he has written anopen letter to McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook challenging the business to up its fresh credentials and has appeared on Canada’s hit TV show, Undercover Boss, as the youngest CEO in the show’s history.

“I’ve made an obsessive study of health and wellness,” he concedes. “What I’ve seen is the evolution of what healthy means to the consumer and how to bring it into different settings – convenience stores, big box outlets, traditional high street stores and forecourts. It takes a certain type of model, but I do believe we can drive health and wellness to a mass market.”

And all locations, be they travel hubs, colleges and universities or high streets, work for the brand and raise awareness. As Corrin observes: “Locations are like planting flags for accelerating growth.”

Staff culture

As the Undercover Boss TV show testifies, Freshii has built a great people culture, where staff members are engaged and clearly have a passion for both the brand and business.

“We have this tremendous career path,” Corrin says. “Team members can move all the way through to a franchise owner and many team members have become franchisees. I call that a health check.”

While Freshii is keen to help staff members progress through the organisation, Corrin says he is also comfortable with the notion that some employees view Freshii as a temporary home – a place to gather skills in order to move on to bigger and better things.

The strong focus on people is also underscored by the fact Freshii has tripled its training team over last 12 months.

Freshii offer

Meeting that ‘foodvenience’ need, 70% of Freshii’s business is take out. Lunch is the busiest day part and accounts for half of total business. The balance is spread across the rest of the day and snacking occasions.

According to Corrin, there has been an expansion in healthy eating at lunchtime but it’s still relatively early days in terms of people thinking about eating healthily at dinner and breakfast. However, therein lies the opportunity. “The dinner day part – as the last meal in the day – will be accelerated around health and wellness and we are prepared to capitalise on that,” he says.

Freshii is also innovating around bowl concepts with breakfast and lunch bowls. There’s also a new Meal Box programme, a subscription based delivery model offering one day, three day, five day and 30 day plans, which allows Freshii to deliver meals to customers within a small radius of its restaurants.

There are four themed boxes: a Slim Box, a Bulk Box for muscle building, a Gluten-Free Box and a Clean Box for mindful eaters. There’s clearly an appetite for this ‘uber convenient’ concept and Corrin reveals that in some cases Meal Boxes account for 45% of a restaurant’s menu.

These solutions are all geared to energize consumers, a key marketing message for the Freshii brand. “More days of the week than not, people need to choose a healthier solution. That’s how we choose to communicate our message,” Corrin says.

Future opportunities

Given the current consumer trends, Freshii’s future growth looks assured.

While that may not include a partnership with McDonald’s: Corrin refuses to comment on whether his open letter elicited a response from the chain’s CEO but he adds that “interesting opportunities constantly come up for our brand” and that Freshii will continue to work to remove the biggest barriers to eating well – affordability and convenience.