WHOLLY Irish-owned pizza chain Four Star Pizza has delivered a record-breaking year - and has plans to serve up further growth and job creation in 2019.
The company, which operates 55 stores across the island of Ireland, including 14 in the north, experienced revenue growth of 8 per cent in the last calendar year, driven largely by a mouth-watering 31 per cent rise in online sales.
With investment of more than £1 million in the brand, the year also saw more than 100 new jobs created with the opening of six new stores,and overall it sold around 4.5 million pizzas.
The first Four Star Pizza store in Northern Ireland was opened on Belfast’s Beersbridge Road in 1999.
Its northern estate now includes Bangor, Carrickfergus, Newry, Drumahoe, Derry, Armagh, Newtownabbey, Coleraine and, most recently, Lisburn, which opened its doors in December.
And director Brian Clarke revealed that the company also plans to expand further this year, with a possible move into the GB market also on the menu.
“We’re delighted to announce a record year for Four Star Pizza, which has seen us grow our franchise network, our revenues and our online business," he said.
“We're particularly pleased with the growth in our online business, following the launch of our loyalty programme and development of an online ordering system to make it easier for customers to place an order with us. This has made a significant impact with online revenue growth of more than 31 per cent.
“This year we plan to grow our store network further in both Northern Ireland and the Republic and our target is to have a total of 65 outlets on the island by the end of 2019, creating up to an additional 200 new jobs.
“While we continue to grow in Ireland, we are aware that there is a capacity ceiling here with every franchise having its own dedicated delivery territory as part of its contract. This protects our franchisees by ensuring we don’t open another Four Star Pizza store just down the road from them.
“With this in mind, we have our eyes on the GB market and are actively looking at plans to expand our operations across the Irish Sea. We are focused on expanding the brand outside its core markets of Belfast, Dublin and Cork – which have pretty much reached saturation point,” he added.
