“Chinese restaurants go bust because they charge too much for bad food”

David Page: «Wagamama's Andy Hornby is a great guy, but he's never been a waiter or a chef.» Photo: Heathcliff O&#39 ;Malley

Chinese restaurants are shutting down due to inflated prices and 'not-so-good' food, says pizza company CEO Franco Manca.

A number of mid-range restaurants have collapsed in the wake of the pandemic as margins were eroded by rising wage, energy and ingredient costs, and a cost-of-living crisis forced diners to cut numbers.

But David Page, chairman of Franco Manca's recently sold parent company, The Fulham Shore, said the pizza chain thrived on being «cheaper than Pret A Manger» and keeping the menu simple.

He said: The Fulham Shore menu is too big. They try to do too many things. You need a qualified kitchen that costs money. £30 a person and that's not good, it's a problematic sector and that's where they all go bust.»

Many former large retail chains such as Byron, Prezzo and Le Pain Quotidien have run into trouble and have been forced to close their stores. It's a far cry from the informal food boom of the 2010s, when chain restaurants expanded rapidly, fueled by private investors and cheap debt.

Mr. Page thinks Franco Manca weathered the storm, undermining even his competitors. as the cost of everything from dairy to tomatoes has skyrocketed.

He said: “Our principle at the beginning was that we would be 30 percent cheaper than anyone else. Obviously margins are under pressure due to the economy, but customers are still coming in for the value of the product.

«You'd be hard pressed to spend more than £10, we're cheaper than Pret A Manger ”.

1406 food inflation

He claimed that Franco Manca was able to cut costs by cutting out middlemen and sourcing. directly from farmers in Italy.

“There are no intermediaries in Italy, and in England there are no intermediaries who take 2 or 3%,” he said. “So, we go to the manufacturer and… we go to people who make cheese, chickens.

“We are trying to figure out who is in charge of production and what quality control is. We buy directly from them and then arrange transportation.”

Mr Page said Franco Manca and its sister chain The Real Greek were able to take advantage of the closure of competitors and secure lower rents.

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“I'm afraid to say that we did it and will take advantage of the bankruptcy of other enterprises,” he said. “My best site in the UK is Real Greek where it took us £200,000 to move from Carluccio’s and the landlord gave us £200,000. This is my best result.”

This comes after Andy Hornby, head of Wagamama's parent company, The Restaurant Group, told The Telegraph last year that he doesn't believe informal eating will ever return. to its pre-pandemic scale.

When asked if he agrees with this. Commenting on Mr Hornby, Mr Page said: “He's a great guy. But he was never a waiter or a cook. I started doing the dishes.”

Long before he took over Franco Manca and The Real Greek, Mr. Page is credited with helping turn Pizza Express into the big name it is today.

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He started his career as a dishwasher in one of the company's restaurants in the early 1970s and then worked his way up as a pizza waiter and eventually ran 14 of his own restaurants.

He later became the chief. chief executive of Pizza Express in the UK, who played a leading role in its distribution in 1993. The chain expanded rapidly, reaching out to the British middle class and helping to popularize pizza across the country.

Mr Page left Pizza Express in 2003 when it was taken over by private capital.

«The owner of the former Carluccio's gave us £200,000 to upgrade to The Real Greek.» This is my best deal. Photo: Franco Manca.

In 2015, he bought a majority stake in Franco Manca, which grew out of an independent pizzeria in London's Brixton, for £27.5m. 70 restaurants across the UK.

However, his comments came out as Franco Manca and The Real Greek now face a future under new ownership. Fulham Shore, the parent company of both chains, was bought by Tokyo-based food company Toridoll for £93m.

The acquisition, which closed this week, is ending a public company in the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

She reportedly earned Mr. Page, who owned more than 13% of her shares, a salary of around $11 .8 million pounds. He will remain in the business as a consultant.

Toridoll, which operates the Marugame chain of 11 noodle establishments in the UK, wants to increase the number of Franco Manca and The Real Greek restaurants to around 200, roughly doubling the group's current size.

Sale of Toridoll at 14.5p per share, Fulham Shore is valued at a premium of around 35p. Publicly traded hotel companies have struggled in recent months as share prices have fallen amid widespread concern about the economic situation in the hospitality industry.

«[Toridoll] thought they saw more value than a public market. London,” Mr. Page said.

When asked if he shared the fear that London was becoming a less attractive place to list companies, he replied: “As for me, I should not scold the English language . public markets, because every time I made a lot of money by listing shares, doing business and selling on the open market.

“So that would be a sweet voice for me … But that's in the past. London has always been a very attractive place, but I think other people can catch up in terms of competitiveness.”