PRODUCTION
Andrew has always said they ’ re here to be a support role for us . They can be as active or proactive as we would like them to be . It ’ s still very clear that Pieology has its objectives , and what we want to accomplish with the brand . They would not have made the investment and decided to partner with the brand if we didn ’ t have an alignment with them .
FDF : There seem to be a lot of synergies between Pieology and PRG in terms of core values and mission statements ?
CC : Over the years , one thing PRG has always been incredibly successful at and known for is building their people . They have had tremendous personal impact in changing lives at that organization , and that may be from impacting a small family to helping someone be successful in changing even their opportunity with their career .
There are so many great entrepreneurs and great restaurateurs that have come from the organization — it ’ s almost like a school where you learn so much from an organization like that .
At Pieology , for me it wasn ’ t a business venture . It was something I wanted to start to find a way of giving back — community outreach and building community and being active and supportive of that .
That also extends within the Pieology family , the fact that we can be an organization that might help youngsters pursue a career or an opportunity that perhaps life may not otherwise have afforded them . Those are the types of things that motivate me , and the reasons why we started Pieology . There ’ s a lot from Panda ’ s success that I hope to learn from .
FDF : What ’ s next for Pieology in light of this announcement ?
CC : It will be interesting . It ’ s still early days , but if things continue to progress , I would say it ’ s more than likely that we ’ ll accelerate our growth and we certainly have more resource and capability to do so .
We already have a very aggressive growth plan , wanting to hopefully be over 200 units by the end of 2016 . Over the next 3 to 5 years we can definitely see accelerated growth .
10 March 2016