ONE MORE THING:ONE SERVICE business that is proving resilient in the recession here is pizza delivery, according to veteran accountant Anthuan Xavier, the majority shareholder with Four Star Pizza (Ireland) Ltd, which holds the licensing rights for the brand on the island of Ireland.
Four Star will open six new franchised outlets this year, continuing a trend of recent years when Xavier and former BDO Simpson Xavier colleague Jason Sheehy teamed up to run the chain.
“I wouldn’t say it’s recession-proof but it’s far more resilient than most businesses,” Xavier told me this week.
Recently filed accounts for Four Star show the holding company made a loss in 2008 of €83,000, leaving it with accumulated profits of €1.44 million.
Xavier, who spent 23 years with BDO before stepping out five years ago, said the loss was the result of its expansion, although the bulk of the fit-out and property costs are borne by the franchisee.
Xavier said revenues across the chain were about €20 million last year, which was 2 per cent up on 2008. This performance included the six new stores opened last year. On a like- for-like basis, turnover was down.
And this year? “We had a great start to the year and then we had the snowfall,” Xavier said, but every cloud has a silver lining. “One day was brilliant – the day of the traffic jams in Dublin. We had to deliver straight to people in their cars because the traffic wasn’t moving.”
Eating in is the new eating out, so to speak, which has helped volumes.
However prices have been dragged down by the recession.
“Prices have come down, it’s been heavily discounted,” he said.
It’s also heavily marketed with homeowners routinely bombarded by an assortment of menus for various takeaways.
“We spend a couple of hundred thousand a year on that – it’s not a small sum.”
Xavier and Sheehy also hold the rights for Four Star in Britain but have yet to dip their toes in that market.
“We have another three years of growth in Ireland before we exhaust our opportunities here,” he said.
Isn’t the British market already saturated with pizza-delivery companies? “There are certain parts where it’s not, in the north of England for example, but it’s not on our radar for the next two to three years.”
Xavier is chairman of a handful of companies in Ireland, including design retailer Kilkenny, which recently took over the Stephen Pearce gallery in Cork. “They’re hoping to open there before Christmas.”
