OPINION: Mo Razzaq is adding a Subway counter to his convenience store

Mo Razzaq shares his experience on adding a Subway counter to his store

When I sat down to plan my new Family Shopper store 3 years ago I knew that having a strong Food To Go (FTG) offer was going to be an important part of it. I am quite a cautious person at heart and knew that I would have to fully understand and make the Family Shopper concept work in Blantyre before making a significant investment in Food to Go.

My vision for the store is to build a business that supports the community, so having researched the competition I found that the pizza, pasta, fried chicken and Chinese take-aways were already catered for. I looked at a number of in-store franchise opportunities including Domino’s, but the FTG solution that impressed me most was Subway.

I had been approached by Wahid Sadiq, the Subway development manager for the west of Scotland at the Scottish Grocery awards dinner. He thought that Subway would work well in my store. When Walid visited the store to discuss the franchise proposition formally I found that it was an easy concept to understand.

Talking through the big things like investment, franchise costs, supply chain, standards, training as well as launch and after care support it quickly became clear that installing a Subway unit into my store would be a good option. The most important information of course is what sales and profitability may look like. Subway is a known brand in my part of Scotland as the nearest outlet is 3 miles away.

Next steps

After signing the contract to bring Subway into my store things got busy. The Subway kitchen and counter was planned and will be sited at the front of the store opposite the main counter. The fixtures and equipment was ordered and I arranged for our builder to undertake the work. I also recruited 5 new employees to work exclusively on this new venture.

A big part of Subways success is getting trained to meet their standards. I spent two weeks at a Subway outlet in Cambridge to discover how to operate a franchise. It was hard work, but very positive with three tests during the fortnight to ensure that I had understood what I was being taught. At the end of the course I sat a five-hour exam and I ended up with an average of 99.5%!

Having been through training my current focus is on getting my Subway kitchen and serving counter installed and ready for action.  Exciting days that I hope and expect will lead to success with this venture. Subway’s predictions for turnover is £4,000 a week in the first year and couple this with a projected 50% gross profit after franchise costs I think this will be a successful partnership.

I will cover what happened next in my next article.