Papa John’s is cooking up some major expansion plans and has today announced it aims to open a further 25 stores across the country, taking the total number of Papa John’s outlets to 200 in the UK, by the end of the year.  

“First pioneered in the USA, the Papa John’s concept of only using the highest quality ingredients and 100% fresh dough to create a top quality pizza with a better natural flavour has proved incredibly popular over here,” confirms Dave Galvin UK franchise sales manager at the pizza franchise. 

“We currently have 88 UK franchisees operating 185 outlets and with 9 new stores already opened this year, we are well on target to reach our goal of over 200 by the year end.

When Gurprit Johal graduated from university in 2003 with a BA(hons) in Business Economics, he immediately pursued a career in self-employment in the retail industry ultimately becoming a fulltime landlord with a property portfolio which he is still actively expanding.

He had been subconsciously aware of franchising from an early age, when his parents seriously considered buying a McDonalds franchise, so, having always been self-employed, taking the franchise route to business ownership was an obvious one for him.

When asked why he chose Redstones over their competitors or even other franchise concepts Gurprit says: “The lettings franchise market was the first area I investigated and Redstones immediately stood out for me as they are an established company which is franchising their business in a fresh an innovative way; I wanted to be a part of a success story in the making as opposed to a buying into a franchise that had reached market saturation point and had their best days behind them.  

Dean Caldon is not your typical franchise owner having gained a BA(Hons) degree in Accountancy in 1995, he began his professional career training to be a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now known as PwC).

Dean moved into the Investment Industry shortly afterwards and for the next 10 years, worked for a number of Asset Managers and Hedge Funds as an Equity Dealer.

More lucrative

Dean’s final move four years ago, before discovering the wonderful world of franchising, was to working within Investment Banking as a successful Emerging Market Equity Sales Trader. So why would someone like Dean see franchising as a better option to a lucrative career?

Chris Hayton left college to start a life with the Royal Air Force when he was just 17.

Working first as a weapons technician on Harrier Jump Jets and Tornadoes, his skills led him to a career teaching aerospace engineering with the European Centre for Aerospace Training.

Fast-forward a little over 20 years, and the 44-year-old newlywed is ready to navigate a new slipstream with his own Riverford Organic veg box delivery business. Matt Pigott interviews.

“One, all of our family own businesses from a Petrol Station Franchise to Restaurants & Gold Retailers and two, we have always been around business-minded people and environments.”

Mihir says: “To us it was never about making money…..naturally we all want to make money, but we wanted a business, or a product, that would make a real difference to people’s lives. We feel that this is far more rewarding and ultimately priceless.”

Mihir and Heena decided to dedicate themselves to Tutor Doctor and help provide the training needed in today’s education system. In life you often have just one chance to learn and with a lack of confidence and distractions students can falter in their education.

Mac Tools is the future for franchisee Steve Phillips who has recently been hit with double redundancy.

Here he explains how he took control of his career by choosing franchising and the leading auto tools franchise.

“I had been working in the motorhome industry for over 17 years, mostly for a German company. With the fluctuation of the Pound and Euro, I was made redundant so went back into the retail side for a little while. I was then made redundant again and decided I was fed up of working for other people.

When Clare and Clive Pearson found they were expecting twins ten years ago, the high powered couple decided that their demanding career-focused lifestyles needed to change.

Clare wanted to be at home with her children and Clive was determined that his late evenings and working weekends should come to an end.

“When we spotted the Ovenclean franchise opportunity, we knew it was for us,” Clare explains. “I would be able to handle bookings and paperwork at home, whilst Clive would be out at the ‘sharp end’ cleaning ovens and building the business.”

It then invited Britain’s top gymnast, Beth Tweddle, to show off its patriotic piece by performing a series of rhythmic routines on and around the unit.

As a test of the material’s strength and resilience, Beth’s energetic vaulting, tumbling, jumps and acrobatics put it through its paces, although Granite Transformations would expect far more severe treatment in normal household and commercial use.

Figures for one of its branches, Redstones Reading, show a substantial increase between the six months from October ‘11 to March ’12, plus a 50% growth in landlord acquisition. This reflects the buoyancy of the Lettings industry as a whole; with evidence being been shown as reported in the NatWest/BFA survey, which presented franchising growth several times that of the national growth.