Dave Howse, managing director of McDonald's New Zealand. Photo / Greg Bowker
Dave Howse, managing director of McDonald's New Zealand. Photo / Greg Bowker
McDonald's New Zealand is gearing up for nationwide expansion, spending $100 million over the next five years to open at least 15 restaurants and refurbish a string of others throughout the country.
The fast food giant's strategy is to open at least three new restaurants each year over the nextfive years, and where possible build its own sites. McDonald's owns the real estate of more than half of its 170 New Zealand stores.
McDonald's says it costs more than $4m to open a new restaurant, about $2.2m to build the store and around $2m to fit it out with machines and signage.
About eight of the 15 stores will open in Auckland. Four new restaurants will open this year, including the airside restaurant at Auckland International Airport which opened today, and another at the Taupiri interchange in Waikato.
An additional 20 restaurants will undergo major refurbishments, including revamps to interior and exterior designs, digital menu boards, self-service kiosks and upgrading drive-thrus to two-lane operations. About 75 per cent of the $100m investment would be spent on refurbishing existing restaurants, which costs between $500,000 and $2.5m in this country.
About $13m will be spent on refurbishments and new restaurants this year.
McDonald's managing director Dave Howse said a growing population and increased demand was fuelling the franchise company's expansion, particularly in the Auckland region.
"At the moment we've got really good consumer demand, the population is growing in certain areas, when you look across Auckland you can see new pockets of population, and we just want to take advantage of some of those situations," Howse told the Herald.
McDonald's, which has been operating in New Zealand for 43 years, recently opened four new restaurants in Christchurch.
Last year it spent close to $20m on building five restaurants and created around 500 jobs.
"The focus for our business is building sales within our existing restaurants but we definitely have opportunities where there's a group of population not serviced hence the expansion strategy," he said.
"Expanding our existing restaurants is always our priority because there's 170 of them."
The launch and subsequent roll out of McCafe to restaurants and McCafe available through drive-thru, and All Day breakfast had been well received in the market, Howse said.
McDonald's airside store at Auckland International Airport, which opened today. Photo / Greg Bowker
McDonald's has committed to investing $500 million for expansion in Australia, with an aggressive plan to open 45 new restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne within the next three years.
Howse said McDonald's was expanding and had committed to opening new restaurants in markets "in most of the world". "A lot of it's tied into the growth of our brand - it's population growth, pockets of population moving around."
Howse said McDonald's welcomed competition and it was not fazed by Taco Bell's poised entry into the local fast food market.
