Turkey: local chicken restaurant chain set for fast growth

Chicken is the most consumed meat product in Turkey, with a nearly 70 percent share, as a recent survey indicates, but the number of restaurants specializing in chicken dishes is almost the opposite.

There had been only one chicken restaurant chain in Turkey and a foreign franchise, until three young entrepreneurs stepped up in this business with a delicate taste suited to the traditional Turkish palate. Established only last year, Tavuk Dünyası, or “Chicken World” in English, now has 22 stores in Turkey, chiefly in İstanbul. In a short period of time it has been climbing up the ladder of success with firm steps to becoming the most widespread chicken restaurant chain in Turkey.

Sunday’s Zaman hosted Mustafa Kaya, a board member of Özmar Gıda as well as a founder and the product development manager of Tavuk Dünyası, to talk about the company’s rapid growth and its prospects for the near and medium term. Kaya and the other founders of Tavuk Dünyası were franchise owners of meat restaurants for many years before they decided to establish their own business using their own concept. The idea to focus only on chicken came to life when one day they realized that their special “Soslu Tavuk,” a chicken dish with sauce, outperformed the franchise licensed food items in sales and had become very popular, especially among young people. “That was the moment when we decided to establish our own brand,” said Kaya. The three partners then started their journey in the uncharted territory of this business.

The next of couple of years passed conducting product development studies. They prepared 36 different mixtures of sauce flavored with various spices with the help of master chiefs and gourmets and registered them all. Now they have the exclusive rights to these special -- and secret -- formulas.

Kaya says that in the meantime they were also working hard to complete the necessary tasks on the corporate side, like the basic conditions of incorporation. The company was finally launched in February 2012, and the choice of location for the first restaurant was the coast of Süreyyapaşa in İstanbul’s Maltepe district. But Kaya says their main goal was and is to open restaurants in elegant shopping centers and they have so far achieved this to a great extent. Today, Tavuk Dünyası has 22 stores open for business and they are quickly completing the necessary work to open 19 more before the end of this year.

The company is open to all options for growth, including franchising, partnerships and opening stores by itself, Kaya emphasized. Its conditions for granting franchise rights are not so tough. The initial cost of establishment for a franchisee is between TL 250,000 and TL 400,000 depending on the size of the restaurant and this amount must be met by the applicant entrepreneur. The sauces and the meat are all prepared and supplied by Tavuk Dünyası and the store owner may not sell any other food. In addition to these requirements, the parent company will get a 3.5 percent royalty fee per month from the revenues. The stores are all designed and furnished by Tavuk Dünyası and even the personnel are recruited and trained by the company. Kaya notes that demand for franchise licenses has been quite high so far and the growth rates were beyond their expectations. Indeed, this demand makes them very optimistic about the future of the company. “Our long-term objective is to become Turkey’s largest chicken restaurant chain and we will accomplish this with 150 venues,” he said. They have even longer-term plans like achieving a global identity by expanding abroad.

“We are receiving master franchise applications from the Saudi Arabia and Iraq. In master franchising deals, we will give our product recipes to the company and they are responsible for setting up the production facilities according to our requirements,” said Kaya.

Tavuk Dünyası is very meticulous -- even obsessive -- about the quality of the products used to prepare their dishes. The chickens are purchased from Beypiliç, which has a halal certificate and the spices, too, come from renowned producers. For Kaya, freshness is as important as the uniqueness of the taste. “The chicken comes in fresh and we never shock [quick freeze] them. They are marinated in our special sauces for about 12 to 14 hours and are then transferred to our stores after packaging. We transport them with our own frigorific trucks inside İstanbul and get a hand from logistics companies to send them to abroad.

Asked if the company was planning to take orders online, which is a growing trend in the sector right now, Kaya said they had been working on this for some time and that they have already shaken hands with two sites that offer their members the menus of registered restaurants. For this, Tavuk Dünyası has also designed a special package for home delivery that has three divisions in it for the chicken, salad and pasta. Another means of promoting their product is sponsoring TV contests like the “Ben Bilmem Eşim Bilir,” a reproduction of a German program, Mein Mann Kann. In one section of the contest, the spouse of the contender must estimate how much their spouse can devour of a certain product in a given period of time. The product sponsors often enjoy a dramatic boom in sales after this part of the contest airs on TV. It is also an easy way to boost brand recognition.

Tavuk Dünyası is quite active in exploiting the instruments of modern marketing. They have widely followed accounts on Facebook and Twitter and are promoting themselves through location-based social networking media like Foursquare. “We are organizing small contests on these channels and delivering small gifts to participants. Similarly, we are always organizing campaigns solely for the benefit of our online followers,” he said.