US fast-food chain Wendy’s to open hundreds of restaurants across Australia

American fast-food chain Wendy’s has revealed plans to scale the company’s brand footprint by opening hundreds of restaurants across Australia.

On Monday, the popular hamburger brand revealed that it was already actively recruiting franchise partners with strong operations experience, local development expertise, and a proven track record of growing brands in Australia to launch across the country.

With more than 7,000 restaurants worldwide, Wendy’s plans to enter the Australian market on the east coast using a franchising model. The company has been searching for master franchisees since September last year. 

Wendy’s president of international and chief development officer Abigail Pringle said the company sees Australia as a high-priority, strategic growth market with great potential to expand the brand’s international footprint.

“It’s an exciting time to join Wendy’s team,” she said.

“We’re on a journey to become a brand of global significance by meaningfully growing our global restaurant footprint.”

“To help us achieve this goal, we are focused on building long-term relationships with franchisees that share our commitment to serving fresh, high-quality, great-tasting food and delivering exceptional hospitality.

Pringle said Wendy’s is interested in partners that want to build a business over the long term and work with the company together to grow the brand. 

“When we look at Australia, we look at what kind of franchise model we want to use. And right now, our plan is to have a master franchise model in Australia,” she said.

“We’re looking for very specific candidates that are well capitalised, focusing on creating great teams and culture that might also have some infrastructure for other businesses that they may own.”

This week, Pringle will hold virtual talks with prospective master franchisee holders in Australia about different models that could be used, as well as the purchase of land for new restaurants.

This comes after Wendy’s hosted an exclusive one-day-only pop-up event in Sydney in 2021 to gauge Australian consumer interest in the brand’s menu offerings, including signature menu items such as Dave’s Single hamburger, and Wendy’s Frosty dessert. 

The $US4.8 billion franchise chain, which has confirmed it wants to increase its global restaurant numbers to 8500 by 2025 from the current 7000, revealed the response to the event was overwhelmingly positive, with local consumers sharing that they’re ready for Wendy’s to arrive in Australia. 

According to Euromonitor data, the Australian quick service market is expected to grow 32 percent over the next five years to $8.7 billion.

The global quick service restaurant brand was founded by Dave Thomas, who opened the first Wendy’s restaurant in November 1969  in Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. By 1980, 2000 Wendy’s restaurants had opened across the US. In 1970, Wendy’s introduced the first modern drive-through to the world. Originally called the “drive-in window”, Thomas coined the term “Pick-Up Window”.