The franchise food chain SumoSalad has sold 60 percent of its business to the Tulla Group, a family based private equity firm which has plans to add a further 200 stores to the network over the next five years.

Luke Baylis and James Miller founded the healthy fast food business nine years ago. The network now has 99 outlets.

Baylis [pictured below] told Franchising “We decided to do this early in 2012. We had a major shareholder looking to exit and sell his stake. So we took a proactive step and took our time to find the right partner.”

Minority shareholders were bought out, Miller is no longer involved in the business, and Baylis retains a 40 percent stake in SumoSalad and his position as managing director.

“This is a more strategic approach, we’re here for the long haul,” Baylis said. “We believe we can rival Subway and McDonalds. We have a strong point of difference and there is a lack of good operators in our segment. We’re the clear market leader, and we’ve got great opportunities to drive growth.”

The business has proved countercyclical, he said, with 16 percent growth this year.

So why the choice of the Tulla Group as partners for the SumoSalad business?

“It’s a family owned firm, they’ve got no investment timeline so they could be partners for 30 years, and they believe in the vision of the business. There’s a huge amount of resource with board involvement and they have very deep pockets,” Baylis said.

While there are plans to open high performing corporate stores there will also be an increase in franchised outlets. And the partnership is good news for franchisees, said Baylis.

“There will be better marketing, a better strategic influence, it will be very positive,” he said.