Focus Brands

Delivered August 15th, 2019. Contributors: Ifeoma D., Eunice A., adeola, Philip, Emma H. and

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Focus Brands Overview

All the requested information for the company Focus Brands Inc has been presented in the brief below. Focus Brands was established in 2004 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company operates over 6,000 restaurants in 50+ countries. 
FINDINGSHISTORYFocus Brands Inc which started as an affiliate of the Roark Capital Group, was officially established in 2004 following the purchase of the brands Cinnabon and Seattle's Best Coffee and a merger with Carvel Corporation. 
The company is now a privately held food and beverage company based in Atlanta, Georgia. 
The company describes itself as a "leading developer of global multi-channel food service brands", operating over 6,000 restaurants, ice cream shoppes, cafes, and bakeries in the US, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and 50+ countries globally through their affiliate brands. 
Focus Brands Inc has 8 different affiliate brands including notable brands such as Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon, McAlister's Deli, Schlotzsky's, Carvel, and Jamba. 
The company is focused on providing top-notch care for its brands, licensees, franchise owners, and team members.
OVERVIEWCorporate Office Location FOCUS Brands, 5620 Glenridge Dr. NE, Atlanta, GA 30342
Number of EmployeesThe company boasts of over 9,000 employees across all its different locations globally.
Annual RevenueFocus Brands Inc generated an estimated revenue of $421.9 million in sales from all its brands.
Executive Leadership Steve DeSutter — Chief executive officer
 Kat Cole — Chief operations officer
 Mike Dixon — Chief financial officer
 Dan Gertsacov — Global chief marketing officer
 Gary Bales — Chief brand officer
MAJOR COMPETITORS(1) Yum BrandsThis "fortune 500" company boasts of food service brands such as Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC, with over 48,000 restaurants in over 140 countries globally. They generated total revenue of $5.6 billion at the end of their 2018 fiscal year.
(2) Dunkin BrandsDunkin Brands also operates in the food service/quick service restaurant franchising space, with brands such as Dunkin Donuts, and Baskin Robbins. The company boasts of 19,000+ restaurants globally with annual revenue of $1.3 billion in 2018.
(3) Fiesta Restaurant Group IncThis group "owns, operates and franchises" fast casual/quick-service restaurant brands Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana. The company generated $688.6 million in revenue at the end of its 2018 fiscal year.

RESEARCH STRATEGYTo fulfill this request, we commenced our research on the company's website, where we were able to retrieve information on its history, office location and leadership. Since the company is still privately held, information on its revenue was not publicly available at the time of our research. To go around this, we made use of a third-party business information platform Hoovers, to retrieve an estimated annual revenue for Focus Brands Inc, and have provided the information in our brief above. 

Regarding the company's key competitors, we have defined key competitors as those companies who operate in same multi food service brands and quick-service restaurant space as Focus Brands, are based in North America, and generate more revenue or generate revenue within the same range as Focus Brands Inc.

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Jamba Juice Overview

Jamba Juice is majorly a smoothie company, founded in 1990. It was recently acquired by Focus Brand for $200 million and its revenue for 2017 was $71 million. Its major competitors are Planet smoothie, Juiceitup, Smoothie King, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, and Orange Julius.
HISTORYJamba Juice, a "smoothie influencer," was founded about 30 years ago in the year 1990. It was founded in San Luis Obispo, California, by Kirk Perron and three of his friends. The company originally started with the name "Juice Club" in 1990.
The company's second Juice Club was opened in Irvine, California in 1994 alongside 16 franchises. The company changed its name to Jamba Juice in 1995.
In the year 1996, Jamba Juice had 30 stores (both franchised and company-owned) operating throughout California. 
Their company signed a licensing agreement with Whole Foods Market to open Jamba Juice bars in Whole Foods supermarkets in California and other states. 
Jamba Juice introduced Jambola bread in 1998.
In 1999, the company bought out one of its competitors, Utah-based Zuka Juice, and also began its Souprimos soup line. 
Paul Clayton was named the company's CEO in the year 2000. 
In 2001, the company already had 330 units. In 2008, the company started a line of wraps, salads, sandwiches, and flatbreads. In 2014, Jamba Juice increased its selection of fresh juices by including options incorporating kale, beets, cucumber, ginger, chia seeds, and cayenne. Its other selections include açaí bowls, oatmeal, Belgian waffles, apple cinnamon pretzels, a four-cheese kids’ pizza, and Talbott Teas.
The company partnered with Nestlé in 2007 to offer ready-to-drink smoothies and juices under the Jamba Juice brand but this partnership only lasted 1 year. 
The company opened its first store in the Philipines in 2011. 
The company was acquired by Focus Brand in 2018 at $200 million.
Jamba Juice was acquired by Steven Berrard, the former CEO of Blockbuster, for $265 million.
PRODUCTSThe company's menu categories include Smoothies, Bowls, Bites and Full menu.
Its smoothies include classic, plant-based and power varieties, bowls (juices, shots, and kids), bites (breakfast, baked foods, and artisan flatbreads) and a full menu.
MAJOR COMPETITORSIts major competitors:
 Juiceitup 
 Smoothie King 
 Tropical Smoothie 
 Orange Julius 
 Planet Smoothie 
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEESThe company has 1,038 employees.
ANNUAL REVENUEIts annual revenue in 2017 was $71 million.
LOCATIONSThe company has over 900 franchised and company-owned locations worldwide.
The company has four international locations. Its international locations are in Taiwan, Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. 
Jamba Juice has more than 700 locations in the Philippines.
It has about 18 stores in the Philippines.
The majority of the company’s more than 900 stores operate west of the Rocky Mountains.
NAMES OF EXECUTIVE TEAM MEMBERSJames D White is the CEO.
Shivram Vaideeswaran is the Chief Marketing Officer.
Danny Sullivan is the Chief Digital Officer.
Loren Bontrager is the Director of Franchise Business Development.
It has two board members, Glenn Welling and Brian Swette.
Research StrategyTo provide an in-depth overview of Jamba Juice our research team began by searching through the company's website to search for its history/timeline, the number of employees, annual revenue, major competitors, locations and the names of its executive team members. Through this strategy we found some information about the company's history and its locations; however, we found no information about its number of employees, annual revenue, major competitors and the names of its executive team members. Thus, we continued our search by looking at third-party websites, news and company databases. Some places we searched are Zoominfo, Hoovers, Crunchbase, Fox News, QSR and Craft.Co among others. Through this strategy, we found more information about the company's history and we were able to determine the company's annual revenue, locations, and franchises, names of its executive team members and several competitors. Please note that we found two different annual revenue figures in different sources (that is $71 million and $694.21 million), therefore, we looked into these revenues and we found a more detailed breakdown of Jamba Juice's revenues from 2006 to 2017 on Macrotrend. So we assumed that the higher revenue ($694.21 million) is the parent company's revenue. Consequently, we provided $71 million as Jamba Juice's revenue as provided by Zoominfo and Macrotrends.

To determine the major competitors of Jamba Juice we compiled a list of all the competitors that we found in several company databases such as Craft.Co, Crunchbase, Zoominfo, and Hoovers. Some of the competitors that we found were Juiceitup, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Orange Julius, Smoothie King, Planet Smoothie and Au Bon Pain among others. We then continued by looking into each company that we found to determine if their products/menus were similar to Jamba Juice. We narrowed our initial list and continued to narrow down our list of competitors by focusing majorly on companies which offered a robust offering of smoothies since smoothies are Jamba Juice's major specialization and they are popularly known for their smoothies. Additionally, we looked at each company's number of units and revenues to determine its major competitors. With this strategy, we were able to determine the major competitors of Jamba Juice based on the products offered by these companies, their units, and their revenues but we selected majorly based on the similarity in products/menus. Consequently, we selected five companies as the major competitors (Planet Smoothie, Juiceitup, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Orange Julius, and Smoothie King Corporation).

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McAlister's Deli Overview

McAlister's Deli was founded in 1989 by Dr. Don Newcomb. A report revealed that this company has over 400 restaurants in 28 states. Below are the details of the findings. 

MCALISTER'S DELI HISTORYMcAlister's Deli was founded in 1989 in Oxford, Mississippi. 
McAlister's Deli was founded by Dr. Don Newcomb, a retired dentist. 
In 1992, this company opened its second location in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. 
In 1994, McAlister's Deli began to franchise . 
In the mid-1990s, Inc. magazine's listed this company as among the 500 fastest-growing companies. 
In 1997, attorney Patrick Walls from Francorp was hired to serve as the company's general counsel. 
In 1997, McAlister's chain had up to 27 restaurants in nine states, with 13 restaurants located in Mississippi, and another 50 restaurants under development. 
In 1998, Dr. Don Newcomb employed Michael J. Stack as McAlister's CEO.  
In 1999, Michael Stack and Philip Friedman raised $8.3 million to purchase 70 percent stake in McAlister's company. 
In 2001, McAlister's recorded a major milestone when it opened its first non-traditional store. 
In 2002, Michael J. Stack resigned as the CEO of the company and was taken over by Friedman.
In 2002, McAlister's opened its first food court prototype, McAlister's Select, which debuted in the Northpark Mall in Ridgeland. 
MAJOR COMPETITORS Some examples of McAlister’s Deli major competitors include Del Frisco's Restaurant Group, Bravo Brio  Restaurant Group, and Jason's Deli.
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEESMcAlister's Deli has a range of 1,001-5,000 employees. 
ANNUAL REVENUE McAlister's Deli estimated annual revenue is $51.1 million 
MCALISTER'S DELI LOCATIONSThis company has over 400 restaurants in 28 states. 
Examples of states with McAlisters Deli restaurants include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, among others.
This company's restaurants are concentrated in the south, southeastern, and the southwestern regions in the United States. 
NAMES OF MCALISTER'S DELI EXECUTIVE TEAM MEMBERS President- Joe Guith 
Chief Marketing Officer- Natalia P. Franco 
Vice President of Operations-Shelley Harris 
Chief Development Officer- Tim Muir 
RESEARCH STRATEGY To address the research request, we commenced the research by scanning through the company's official website. Here, we were able to identify information on the company's different menu items and the states they operate in. Also, based on the states the company is providing its services, we realized that the company is concentrating its restaurants to the south, southeastern, and the southwestern regions of the United States. We could not identify the company's annual revenue by searching through the company's website. We also attempted to identify this information in the company's annual report. Unfortunately, this information was not available because the company is private.

Next, we searched through media publications, press releases, and news outlets such as PRNewswire, Business Insider, and Forbes, among others to identify the company's annual revenue. We could not identify the required information through this approach. Information we were able to identify here was related to the company's overall operations, employees, and expansion, among others. 

Next, we searched through company profiling databases such as D&B Hoovers, ZoomInfo, Crunchbase, and Bloomberg to identify the company's annual revenue and major competitors. Here, we were able to collate data on the company's number of employees and an estimate of the company's revenue. Private companies are not obligated to publicly publish their financial information and therefore we used the estimated revenue. We also identified multiple major competitors of the company using this approach.

For each of the competitors identified in our search, we checked the companies' websites for information on their products and services to see if they offer the same products and services as McAlister's Deli. This was to ensure that the companies selected were direct competitors of McAlister's Deli. From our findings, we were able to narrow down the list to the companies that we considered to be direct competitors based on the products and services they offer.

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Schlotzky's Overview

Schlotzsky’s was founded in 1971 by Don and Delores Dissman. The company has over 350 restaurants in 29 states.
Schlotzky HistorySchlotzsky’s was founded in 1971 by Don and Delores Dissman in Austin, Texas.
Due to the success of the Dissman's products, the company was able to expand within a few years.
 The couple started to Franchise the company in 1977 and by 1981, it had expanded to over 100 locations.
In 1981, the couple sold the company to John and Jeff Wooley and Gary Bradley.
A year later, the partners separated with John and Jeff Wooley maintaining total control of the company.
Under this new leadership, the company expanded its menu to include specialty pizzas, toasted wraps, freshly-tossed salads, gourmet soups, panini, among others.
In 2004, John and Jeff Wooley sold the company to Bobby Cox Companies. This sale helped to strengthen the company operations and brand.
Schlotzsky’s was acquired in 2006 by FOCUS Brands. 
In March 2018, Schlotzsky changed its name to Schlotzky's Austin Eatery and further expanded its offerings.
Schlotzky's Number of EmployeesThe company has 3,046 employees.
Schlotzky's Annual RevenueThe company recorded a revenue of $43.22 million in 2018.
Schlotzky's Executive Team MembersKelly Roddy — President. 
Brian Farris
 — VP Of Operations & Training.
Jason Moore
 — Executive Chef, Research & Development.
Schlotzky's Major Competitors Quiznos 
 Which Wich Inc 
 McAlister's Deli 
 Next Level Burger 
 Applebee's
 Papa Gino 
Schlotzky's LocationsThe company has a total of 359 restaurants outlets in 29 states.
The company's restaurant are concentrated in the south and the southwestern United States.
RESEARCH STRATEGYTo provide an in-depth overview of Schlotzky's company, we commenced the research by scanning through the company's official website. Here, we were able to identify information on the company's different menu on offer and the states they operate in. We also attempted to identify information on the company's annual report to locates her financial information. However, this information was not available because the company is private.

Next, we checked the company profile on company profiling databases such as Hoovers, ZoomInfo among others. Here, we were able to collate data on the company's number of employees and an estimate of the company's revenue. Private companies do not publicly publish their financials and therefore we used the estimated revenue found here. Having failed to identify the company's revenue using other search approaches, we have gone ahead to provide the estimates collated from the company profile on Hoovers. We felt this was the best available information on public data because Schlotzky being a private company is not mandated to publish her financial information on public records. Hence, our inability to identify her financial reports on the company website or news and media publications. We also identified multiple major competitors of the company using this approach.

For each of the competitors identified in our search, we checked the company websites for information on their products and services to see if they offer the same products and services as Schlotzky. This was to ensure that the companies selected were direct competitors of Schlotzky. From our findings, we were able to narrow down the list to the companies that we considered to be direct competitors based on the products and services they offer.

Finally, we scanned for the mentions of the company in news and media sources to identify additional data for our research. Here, we were able to collate data on the company's number of locations in the U.S. We also identified the states the company restaurants are located. Using this information, we found out that 13 out of the 29 states the company operates in are located in southern U.S. Further research also pointed out that most of these states are in the southwestern U.S. Based on this information, we felt confident to infer that the company operations are concentrated in the south and the southwestern United States.

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Focus Brands News Articles

News articles and press releases about Focus Brands, Jamba Juice, McAlister's Deli, and Schlotzky's focus on rebranding, international expansion, new technology and new on trend products. The seven news articles are presented below.
FOCUS BRAND AND JAMBA JUICE MERGERIn August 2018, Business Wire reported the merger of Focus Brand and Jamba Juice. Focus Brand acquired Jamba Juice for $13.00 per share in cash.
The transaction was valued at around $200 million. As part of the deal, Jamba Juice became a privately-held subsidiary of Focus Brand, but continues to operate as an independent brand. 
JAMBA JUICE NAME CHANGEIn June 2019, Jamba Juice announced it was changing its name to just "Jamba". The change is in hopes of winning customers back.
The name change is part of a brand overhaul, including new store designs, a menu that emphasizes convenience, accessibility, and new on-trend menu items.
With the addition of new acai bowls the chain is hoping to branch out from its juice and smoothie reputation.
SCHLOTZSKY'S REBRANDINGIn April 2019, Schlotzsky’s rebranded itself as Schlotzsky’s Austin Eatery. The name change is a nod to the chain's Austin roots.
 Over three months the company worked to rebrand all its restaurants. The company started testing the concept three years earlier and received positive responses.
Along with the name change, the restaurant is launching new menu items, inspired by Austin, stating, we are an eatery“where we experiment with flavors. Where we mix things up. Where we live, breathe, and devour what this town’s all about.”
POSSIBLE FOCUS BRAND IPOIn October 2018, it was revealed that Focus Brand was being considered for an IPO. Roark Capital Group held initial talks with investment banks to take the company public at the beginning of 2019.
Roark Capital Group formed Focus Brands through a deal making spree, starting in 2001. 
At the time the source asked to remain anonymous and Roark Capital and Focus Brands did not respond to the rumors.
FOCUS BRAND EXPANDING TO CHINAIn June 2018, Focus Brand expanded Auntie Anne's into China. The first store opened in Shenzhen, with additional stores set to open in Beijing and Shanghai.
Focus Brand stated that Auntie Anne's has the opportunity to expand quickly in China. 
As part of the company's strategic growth it plans to introduce Cinnabon to the Chinese market.
REVEL ENTERPRICE PLATFORMIn May 2019, Focus Brand deployed the Revel Enterprise Platform across its 1,300 stores.
The platform lets the company streamline the performance of its multi location business and allows it to expand further. The platform allows the company to manage multiple locations from anywhere.
Using Revel's API architecture Focus can take advantage of FreedomPay POS, and Punchh gift card and loyalty programmes.
MCALISTER'S DELI TESTING PLANT BASED PROTEIN SANDWICHESPlant based protein is one of the newest food trends and McAlister's Deli is embracing the trend and testing plant based protein sandwiches. 
In February 2019, the eatery began testing the protein in Chicago and Knoxville. 14 locations tested the new Chimichurri Sandwich from February13th to March 26th. 