ENTREPRENEURSHIP ALIVE AND WELL AS EXHIBITORS DO BRISK BUSINESS AT THE SUCCESSFUL INTERNATIONAL FRANCHISE EXPO

With attendance figures up, both exhibitors and visitors to FASA’s International Franchise Expo held last week agreed that South Africa had indeed ‘turned the corner’ and could be heading for recovery and renewed growth. Commenting on the positive buzz that was felt at this year’s expo, FASA’s Executive Director Vera Valasis believes that, as is always the case, “franchising is always able to weather the storm and is the first to kick-start recovery with new ideas and new concepts.”

This year’s IFE was marked by the largest number of new concepts seen in quite a while – from intimate lingerie, fashion brands, nutritional health concepts to solar and business services.  Food concepts took centre stage with up-and-coming brands like Scooters Pizza, Maxi’s, Galito’s, Anat’s, Fish and Chips Co, Kauai, Pizza del Forno, Old Fashioned Fish ‘n Chips, Sausage Saloon, St Elmo’s, Sandwich Baron and The Brazen Head cementing their positions in the market place.

A good number of new food concepts, both local and international, were launched at IFE with great success. Pasta Go-Go and Pizza Go-Go offered an affordable mobile fast food opportunity that can be adapted to any catering environment.  Steven Strange, of the already successful Sausage Saloon brand and responsible for introducing this new concept was overwhelmed with the response.  “Our stand was 10-deep with potential franchisees interested in our fantastic new concept – we have had hundreds of potential franchisees applying.”

Bringing an international flavour were a number of concepts including leading US brands Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar and Subway. Italian ice-cream brand Ci Gusta! with stores in Rome, Rihadh and Singapore were overwhelmed with leads that exceeded all their expectations. Said a representative from Ci Gusta!, “A huge crowd of visitors and curious people visited our booth to enjoy our delicious gelati and talk to our international business developers .... it’s just a matter of time before you’ll see the first store in South Africa!

Other local and international exhibitors went away with solid leads – B3 Funerals believed they had 5 new franchises in the bag, there was great interest in international mobile Alloy Wheel Repair Specialists and international UK business service franchise Business Doctors were impressed with the quality of visitors to IFE.

The International Franchise Expo, owned and managed by the Franchise Association of South Africa (FASA) continues to be the only dedicated franchise expo on the African continent and visitors come from all over Africa to see our burgeoning industry which contributes almost 12% to GDP (according to Bendeta Gordon’s Franchise Factor 2010). The FASA Business Convention, held alongside IFE, had experts confirm that small business was the only way to fulfil government’s mandate to create 5 million jobs by 2020.  One of the speakers, Chris Hart, Chief Strategist at Investment Solutions, re-iterated the fact that  “it is the small businessmen who, if they are doing well and have an enabling environment, will be the ones to employ more people.”

With exhibitors armed with lists of interested leads and visitors imbued with a renewed sense of purpose and optimism, the International Franchise Expo and FASA hope to have contributed something to the economy, to entrepreneurship and to job creation.

ISSUED BY:             GO COMMUNICATIONS

ON BEHALF OF:      FRANCHISE ASSOCIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA (FASA)

CONTACT:                Giuli Osso

TEL;                            011 802 1602

CELL:                         083 377 6721

EMAIL:                       giuli@gocomms.co.za