AS YUM ! BRANDS EXPANDS IN THE EMERGING AFRICAN QSR MARKET , DELIVERING SUCCESS COMES WITH A LOCAL TOUCH
With more than 45,000 restaurants in over 135 countries and territories , Yum ! Brands is truly a pioneer in the global quick service restaurant ( QSR ) market . Since spinning off from PepsiCo in 1997 , Yum ! Brands has continuously developed successful food franchises such as Taco Bell , KFC and Pizza Hut into markets spanning the globe . Focusing on emerging markets such as the North African region ( including Morocco , Egypt and Tunisia ) and Sub-Saharan Africa ( including South Africa ) has been crucial to the growth of these brands . The African continent in 2018 is one of opportunity and growth , and as Yum ! Brands looks to further develop the Pizza Hut brand it has called upon the services of Ewan Davenport , Yum ! Brands General Manager for Pizza Hut Africa .
“ With this development of Pizza
Hut , it ’ s an incredibly exciting growth pipeline ,” he says . “ We are not just growing Pizza Hut as a global brand , we are to a certain extent growing pizza as a food category in itself because it ’ s not as prevalent in Africa as it is across the world .”
Davenport understands the African market , having worked with SABMiller . It is this experience in the delivery of global and regional brands into local markets that has provided Davenport with a key understanding of the market dynamics and , more importantly , how these global practices and brands will and will not be successfully received .
“ In Africa , affordability will always be a challenge , be it in the pizza category or the beer category . It ’ s not always going to be readily accessible to everybody ,” he says . “ This has had a huge influence on the value chain because we are trying to deliver pizzas to the high standards
102 April 2018