Sandwich franchise opens airport kiosk

Franchise sandwich chain Healthy Habits has opened its first kiosk-style concept store at Melbourne Airport Qantas Terminal 1. The store is owned by global food retailer Delaware North Companies Australia and its food development manager Wayne Richardson said the kiosk design ensures customers will receive fast service.

“The difference between this store and other Healthy Habits stores is that everything is prepared fresh each morning so customers can simply select what they want from the window and not have to wait for their food to be prepared.

“We have a Panini grill to toast sandwiches but everything else is prepared in the early hours of each morning so it’s ready-to-go anytime throughout the rest of the day.”

Richardson said he had been working with Katherine Sampson, Founder and Managing Director of the healthy eating franchie, and an external food consultant to develop the concept store’s menu items.

“The popularity of the menu items at the Qantas T1 concept store has been so phenomenal that we’ve had to relocate to a larger production kitchen to keep up with the demand and add two extra shifts in the morning for food preparation.

"We employ six staff to look after the kiosk and serve customers and five staff to prepare the food before hours so it’s ready and displayed for when we open each morning at 5am.”

Richardson said the healthy eating franchise company would look to develop additional Healthy Habits kiosk style stores.

Katherine Sampson said Healthy Habits was exploring its options by trying out a couple of new store concepts.

“The Melbourne Airport Qantas T1 Healthy Habits kiosk is one of two types of new store concepts we are trialling and has the potential to be rolled out to various locations offered as a franchise option alongside our basic store model,” she said. “It really just depends on the success of the trial models.

“We will also trial a new cafe-style store which we plan to open in the next few months in Nerang.”

Healthy Habits, founded in 2004, has 32 healthy sandwich franchise stores Australia-wide selling over two million sandwiches a year and serving 6,000 customers per day nationally.

Founder Katherine Sampson recently sold a major share in the business to the Dymocks Group. This will provide the infrastructure and investment needed to further expand the brand across Australia and overseas.

This article appears courtesy of 5 Minute Franchising Newsletter