Mazi Jude Nnamdi Nwosu is the Managing Director of Crunches Fried Chicken Limited, one of the quick service outlets servicing major cities in Southeast and South-south of Nigeria. In this interview with Sunny Nwankwo, he shares the success story of how together with his associates was able to build one of the vibrant fast food brands in that part of the country. Excerpts:
When did Crunches become operational?
The plan was in 2002. But officially, we opened doors to customers in 2003. We had our anniversary in 2013 when we became 10 years old in the industry and I can say thus far, we’ve been able to establish our brand, establish our sales and I believe that our customers in all these areas have come to terms with us by accepting our services, accepting what we do because without them, there is no way we could have expanded even beyond Aba where we started. But the confidence they have built around us is the reason we have been able to expand in such a fast way. It is not easy to open a fast food, let me not even use figures. When we started, because we were a startup, no bank was ready to talk to us, we sold out everything we had, borrowed personal funds and we were able to establish the first one. But of course, this wouldn’t have been possible without the chairman of the company, Mr. Mike Anazodo who was very dogged in his attitude to ensure that the business took off.
You have been involved in expansion of your brand in recent times across different regions. Can you tell us what informed the expansion programme so far?
For the past two years, Crunches decided to do something different, expand our scope in different states as it is usual with us and I can comfortably say as at now, Crunches has opened more than four new outlets in Asaba, Onitsha, Calabar and Uyo. For Calabar, Onitsha and Uyo, they are the second branches we are opening in those areas. This is to show our confidence in the economy of those towns and also to show how grateful we are to our customers who in the past years have supported our business in those areas, to say that we say thank you and bringing these outlets even closer to their doorsteps. Again, it is to provide better services and better quality products to our numerous customers.
As part of our expansion programme also, in the next couple of years, we are going to add value to the entertainment industry in Aba. From event centres to cinema halls to restaurants and this is going to change the face of the entertainment industry in Aba. As a matter of fact, a sister company is going to be opening a lounge very soon. Certainly it is still about the confidence we have in the economy of Aba, that we can make Aba a better place for its citizens. Very soon as well, we are going to open in Umuahia, one of the best restaurants that is going to show up in the South East, It’s going to be a mega business.
What do you want to achieve with this expansion?
Before now, we had 14 outlets cutting across the South East, South/South zones. With the expansion, we want to show our confidence in the economy of these areas and to remove from the unemployment line the young ones who have just graduated from school and also to mentor other businesses so that they can invest in these areas.
We had options of importing from China, but we decided not to do so, but to venture into this area of producing Chinese food locally to add value to the area where we currently operate.
As a brand what are your unique selling points?
You know, if you look at the slogan of Crunches, it says, “Taste the difference” and what we have added in our business right now, we say “Crunches plus” and again we created a slogan that said: “Step it up.” What we’ve done is to provide excellent service and better quality products and a wider range of products to our numerous customers. Before now, we were doing the normal fast food of rice, chicken and all that. But right now, we’ve added the Chinese variation because we have found out in most areas where we operate that customers would always ask you for simple things as spring roll, Chinese rice, things like that. So, we decided to bring them under one umbrella and make it such that our customers get these services less than five minutes. Before now, you go a Chinese restaurant and you order for any of the Chinese food, you wait for over twenty minutes before it could get to you. But now we compress that into fast food environment where you come in, within a couple of minutes, you are served, remember with the best quality of products.
Another thing is our ability to connect with our customers. When we got into the business, we realised that children are the driving force in any family. Once you bring children to any place, be it a church and they like it, 90 percent chances are that they are going to drag you into it whether you like it or not. Most of the time, parents want to satisfy their children’s yearning. Yes it was a strong point when we opened Crunches and we had a wonderful children’s section. And to start with, whence a parent brings his child into Crunches at that time, it was difficult for that child to leave and by implication, the parent had to wait and by waiting, he would taste our food and by tasting our food, he will get to like one thing and gradually it will become a family thing.
During the kidnapping era, a lot of businessmen left the city but you remained behind, why did you take that decision?
Let me simply put it this way, till this hour, the economy of Aba has not improved so much because of lack of infrastructure in Abia State. But having said that, I’m one person that believes in the economy of Aba and Abia State in general. If all of us had left Abia state at that time you were talking about, who would have taken care of our teeming youngsters? I will not take God’s glory. I think it was the grace of God that kept us here during the kidnapping era. Let me not say because I was not kidnapped meant that I was holier. No. The truth of the matter is that I believed and I had faith that I was not going to leave Aba for any other place. I stayed here throughout that period.
We all experienced the downturn in business that time. At a point, we were not even paying salary to our workers because there were no customers coming to buy because everybody ran away. But we had hope that God would do His own thing at His own time and He certainly did it.
Crunches has been in business for the past 12 years, what is your market share like?
Let me say that we are the market leader in most of the places where we play and again I give God the glory because it is not by our power or might. But while He is doing His own, as mortals, we also ensure that we do our own beat. Like as I said, we’ve been able to invest much on training and re-training of our staff to be able to provide good and quality services to our customers because it is not easy to have one person who could have cooked in his house, come to you on daily basis to buy food from you. So what do you do, you are keeping an environment that is convivial for this customer to come and relax and enjoy that few minutes that he is with you, so you want to make sure that every time the customer shows up in your outlet that he is comfortable, that he is well taken care of, that he enjoys every minute of his stay so that when he comes back the next time he would have a reason to come back to you.
What advice do you have for people who want to go into fast food business?
The advice is very simple, you have to do a business plan, you need to be advised by business managers to be able to know if you are in the right place for the business you are venturing into, if you have the right attitude to do that business because you might have N1b and you want to go into a business, if you do not have the right attitude, if you don’t have the passion for that particular business, it will certainly fail.
Let me tell you something, from time to time, people come to me to seek advice on how to start a fast food business. Apples came to me and I advised them, they are thriving. As we speak, they have built three branches. If my advice was wrong, they would not have gone far into the business. I tell you that Spicy Shop came to me when they wanted to start this business and I advised them. From the small to the big, in fact, to everything that is used to start the business, I gave them the advice, therefore I don’t see them as competitors, I see them as partners because at the end of the day, the fast food business is a neighbourhood business. If I’m in a location, somebody from another location may not be able to come and buy from me, so there is the need for somebody to open up at that end of the location to carter for those who will show up from that area. Again, the more you open up fast food, the more you have more customers coming into the business.
When we’re trying to open up the first Crunches in Aba, I remember the advice someone gave me that Mr. Biggs was already there, ‘Are you sure you want to go and compete with UAC? But I remember I said to the individual who was telling me this that UAC was run by human beings, not people from outer space, that if they could do it, we certainly will do it and we sure did. And by the end of the day, Mr. Biggs is still there, we are still there and others have joined us since then and what you now do is to be able to get your own market share and stay there.
