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Byo Chicken Inn drive-through deferred again

Business
LISTED fast-foods concern, Simbisa Brands, has deferred the opening of its Bulawayo Chicken Inn drive-through facility, for the second time, to mid-February.

LISTED fast-foods concern, Simbisa Brands, has deferred the opening of its Bulawayo Chicken Inn drive-through facility, for the second time, to mid-February.

BY MTHANDAZO NYONI

The facility, situated along Hillside Road near the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) exhibition centre, was supposed to have been opened last December, but was deferred to last month.

“Everything is more or less done and we are trying to get someone from the Office of the President to officially open it. We are expecting to open it between February 8 and 10,” Simbisa managing director, Warren Meares said.

The facility was built at a cost of over $500 000.

The group last week opened its first drive-through shop in Harare.

The drive-through business model, Meares said, is a convenient way of placing orders, paying and receiving food without disembarking from your vehicle.

Fast-foods rival, KFC, has drive-throughs at Belgravia and Simon Mazorodze branches in the capital.

KFC also wants to build a drive-through outlet in Bulawayo.

Meares said the facility had vast parking space for customers as well as video-gaming facilities, among other services.

Simbisa was demerged from Innscor Africa and listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in November.

CHICKEN-INN

It runs Chicken Inn, Pizza Inn, Bakers Inn, Fish Inn, Nandos, Steers and Creamy Inn.

Innscor has about 200 stores countrywide in Bulawayo, Harare, Bindura, Mvuma, Gweru, Victoria Falls and Chiredzi, among other places.

The group is also targeting opening more shops in areas such as Hwange, Rusape, Kariba and Plumtree.

The group operates its own fast-food outlets in Kenya, Zambia, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as franchised operations in Swaziland, Lesotho and Malawi.

Customers being served at Chicken Inn

These regional operations weighed in with $52 million in revenue in FY2014, while the Zimbabwean fast food business, where Innscor enjoys 82% market share, contributed $98 million.

Group finance director, Salim Ecoalaza told NewsDay that the company would continue its expansion and will add at least 52 stores per year in all the countries it operates in. The expansion, he said, would be financed from the $14 million set aside for that purpose.

Of those funds, $7 million would go towards expansion in Zimbabwe.