The head of development at Domino’s New Zealand and Australia has announced that the pizza chain plans to knead out another 40 restaurants by the end of next year.
Of those, about 15 more stores are set to open in New Zealand, and a further 10 Domino’s pizza restaurants on wheels – the business’s new model for nationwide expansion.
Cameron Toomey, head of development for New Zealand and Australia, said Domino’s was ramping up its expansion plans and exploring ways to open locations in regional New Zealand.
“We’re entering into more of the regional markets where we probably wouldn’t have put stores in five or 10 years ago.”
Toomey’s comments came ahead of the opening of Domino’s 150th store in Orewa, Auckland, on Wednesday.
So far this year Domino’s had opened nine new stores in New Zealand, with more planned for Helensville, “locations south of the North Island”, and small towns in the South Island.
Its plans for 40 more come as part of its ambitions to grow its network on both sides of the Tasman to 1000 in 2024.
Toomey said the pizza franchise was developing its “pizza kitchen on wheels” concept that would enable it to get into smaller regional locations. It will launch in Pokeno in early January and works in the same way as a traditional outlet but could move and park in different locations.
Domino’s has been operating in New Zealand for 20 years.
Toomey said the pizza kitchens on wheels were Domino’s response to managing increasing costs for franchise owners who otherwise would not be able to run viable businesses in some towns.
Domino’s anticipated it would spend more than $16 million on opening new stores and $4m to $5m on the new pizza trucks over the next two years.
“We’re committed to building more to get them up and operational in New Zealand. Over the next 12 to 24 months we could see 10 to 15 mobile pizza kitchens operating around New Zealand.”
