FAST-FOOD chain Chicken Slice founder and chief executive Tawanda Mutyebere, is looking to expand both locally and regionally in a bid to extend the retail chain's footprint, Deputy business editor Kudzai Kuwaza (KK) caught up with Mutyebere (TM) to discuss the expansion plans, challenges his company has faced and his prescription for a more efficient fast-foods sector in the country. Below are excerpts:
KK: What are your plans for this year ?
TM: Obviously we are still growing and opening more branches. I wouldn’t say numbers but we are actually busy building in various parts of the country. We are building in the major towns; in Harare we are adding more, in Bulawayo, Gweru, Chiredzi, Zvishavane and Mutare you name it.
What satisfies me is that we always enjoy repeat business with our customers, sometimes it’s pointless to open so many outlets and you are not satisfying your customers but we are proud that we always have repeat business from our customers who are loyal customers, so it is a great achievement.
KK: You were recently involved in a court battle with one of your competitors, Chicken Inn. Can you please elaborate on this?
TM: This issue started long ago; I think it started around 2018, 2019. That is when they opened a case against us, that we are not supposed to use the word “luv” and we must not use the colour red on our trademark, nor on our marketing materials. So they mentioned the colour red and I think yellow. So it took a long time at the courts, I think due to delays because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We had a sitting in 2022 after the relaxation of the lockdown. They had no case against us but the idea here is about bullying. Any particular industry has got giants and the giants feel that their territory is being taken.
Because of that this is just bullying because where on earth is one not allowed to use the word ‘luv’? Anyone can use the word ‘luv’ because it is not a coined word, it's generic, whether you use love or you use luv. Luv is actually in the Oxford Dictionary, it’s a casual way of showing affection to anyone.
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So you cannot say this is my word that I am using because Simbisa never coined that word. So we say ‘I luv it’ they say ‘luv dat chicken’.
They were supposed to sue us if we could then take the whole statement like ‘luv dat chicken’ because that is what they have registered. So you do not register a word and that is where the case dies.
As well as colours, where on earth can one then say red is my colour or yellow is my colour ?That is ridiculous, so you cannot register a colour.
So in Zimbabwe if they do not want us to use red I think everyone who is using red must stop using red right from the national flag of Zimbabwe where one of the colours on it is red.
Nevertheless colours do have different shades. There is not only one red, neither do we have one yellow, or one black they come with different shades.
We won this case sometime in January. As I said these are issues of bullying, they wasted our time, they are wasting our resources, they are wasting our monies and those are just the tricks of a bully.
They really know that there is no case but they are just there to frustrate but we will never be frustrated with such kind of poor attacks because we are doing our business as cleanly as possible. You cannot feed Zimbabwe by yourself.
We welcome anyone who wants to get into the fast-food sector but it is up to the people of Zimbabwe to choose where to buy food.
Go to any other country, you will see in shopping malls, there are more than 10 brands that are selling the same kind of food.
So why is it that here we are fighting each other but yet others are selling food under the same roof? Just go to nearby South Africa, go to Sandton Mall, you will find there is a chain of food courts there, different brands, everyone has got his own customers and for someone to say you are taking my customers, that is ridiculous.
I think we are around 16 million in Zimbabwe and then one would then say 16 million are my customers, it does not make sense.
KK: There has been a proliferation of fast food outlets in the country. How do you intend to keep up with the rapidly growing competition?
TM: You cannot avoid competition like these our brothers are doing. They are trying to avoid competition but you cannot avoid competition.
All you need to do is up your game and remain afloat in the competition. So there are so many ways for you to survive competition, some reduce prices while others do promotions.
On our side our strength is on quality customer service and we do have loyal customers.
I would rather serve 10 customers that are satisfied during the time they visit our shop than serve 100 customers that are frustrated and you are giving them promotions and rotten chickens and stealing from them.
I would be comfortable selling to a few and I make sure that there is value for money. So whether promotion or no promotion, we are not moved because we are proud of our quality and our customer service. Visit any of our shops and you will see what I mean.
KK: What have been the major challenges you have faced as a business?
TM:The control of raw material; it’s a bit of a challenge because we do not have much control on the raw materials which makes us think of doing other lines of business and during our expansion, we also need to do the backward integration whereby we should be processing feed for our own consumption and also to sell to any other customers.
We are talking of major raw materials like chickens and potatoes. Those are the main raw materials.
So we should be seeing ourselves engaging in such kinds of businesses. We are already in the poultry sector and we are now supplying and doing our own chickens.
So we no longer buy chickens anywhere, but we are now supplying our chickens internally.
KK: You have ventured into the production of stock feeds. Can you tell us more about that?
TM: It’s a bit complicated but we are almost there. The plant is ready, it is now the issue of getting licences from various authorities for us to start operating but everything is set. I am sure before the year ends we should be milling.
KK: What has been the impact of the power cuts on your operations?
TM: This one is quite a serious challenge. There is no electricity for like 16 hours in some areas and you would then be forced to use generators.
We have very big generators because our machines are quite big and those generators consume a lot of fuel and that overhead is just too much as it interrupts the smooth running of the business.
It is chewing so much of our profits because we use a lot of diesel and over and above the generators they need to be serviced for them to perform well.
So the issue of power cuts is actually killing the industry. Imagine if someone cannot afford a generator? It means you just need to close and you open when the electricity is back which is sometimes when we are sleeping.
So when the power comes around 10pm and it is not there the time you wake up at 6 o’clock. So it means that there is no production. Hopefully the government is doing something so that the business is back on track.
KK: What do you think needs to be done by the government to improve the operations of your sector?
TM: I think there is a lot of groundwork that needs to be done. Number one, let us avoid frustrating the business community; once someone is very frustrated in a certain sector, you will find that you will end up closing and trying to do something else and you might be doing it outside Zimbabwe.
That means we are exporting our wealth to other countries instead of bringing wealth to our country, so that is a major challenge.
The backbone of fast food is agriculture because it deals with food and all food comes from the soil.
So it is unfortunate that most farms are not being tilled, they are just lying idle and you will end up importing some of the things that you are supposed to produce locally and the cash flow will then be flowing within our borders. But some will end up buying raw materials outside.
You were talking of feed for example, we do not have enough maize so then we need to import to make feed.
We do not have wheat because in the feed industry, we have wheat bran and there is not much of wheat so we will end up importing from Malawi, Zambia and South Africa.
So we are exporting our wealth instead of safeguarding our wealth within our borders that will then improve everything. I think those are the main issues that need to be considered in the fast-food industry.
KK: What are your expansion plans for the next five years?
TM: Obviously our presence should be in the major cities in Zimbabwe and also across borders.
As we are talking, we are also making inroads into neighbouring countries and any time soon we should be opening complexes out there because we have done all the necessary processes required within a certain country so we are almost there.
KK: In which neighbouring countries are you setting up shop?
TM: We talk of Zambia; we talk of Mozambique and Malawi. We have already registered and have done everything in those countries and definitely we are opening branches in those country.
