In The News

Financial adviser Chris Lee said Veritas should never have been a publicly-listed company.  He said Mad Butcher should have remained a franchised chain of butcheries. "The public should not have been asked to put up money."

Veritas said it would write down the value of its assets by $5.4 million. It is also looking for a chief executive.

Veritas was formed in 2011 through a reverse share market listing. It operates the Mad Butcher franchisor business, has a half share in Kiwi Pacific Foods, owns nosh Food Market and the Better Bar Company.

In a sharemarket update, Veritas said most Mad Butcher stores were trading profitably and the brand was a major contributor to the group's profitability.

But it was not without problems.

"Currently, there are five VIL-owned stores in the network that, in spite of extensive support from the franchisor, have consistently failed to achieve budgets for a number of reasons, including location and the inability to find appropriately qualified and experienced franchisees."

McDonald's, which has more than 36,000 locations around the world, is working to turnaround its business under CEO Steve Easterbrook, who will mark one year on the job in March.

One of the biggest changes under Easterbrook was to make the Egg McMuffin and other select breakfast foods available past normal breakfast hours in the U.S. - an option many customers had long desired. The changes come after McDonald's executives conceded they failed to keep up with changing tastes and saw sales slide.

The woman was standing in line at the Cheesecake Shop on Tarewa Rd, waiting to buy a cake for her daughter's birthday when an elderly motorist crashed into the shop.

The shop's owner, Jenny Gu, said: 'It's terrible. It hit a lady and her kid. They were just standing beside the case waiting for service and the car crashed into them.'

Franchisee sources told Fairfax Media a key concern with the new agreement was that it didn't provide all stores with enough of an income boost to offset a new clause in the contract that places all future liability for the underpayment of workers on the franchisee. Some franchisees were also concerned that the new deal doesn't address what will happen to the low-income-generating franchisees when their contracts expire. 

The 7-Eleven spokesman said this was not an admission by the company that its model had contributed to the underpayment of staff.

Mr Levitt said the $25 million offer would not be enough to cover the full amount of claims brought against a store owner or any fines issued by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Taylor said the elderly man had been cold-called by a man claiming to be from a company called "Coastal Vacations" asking him if he wanted to make money from home.

In return for paying "membership fees" he was told he would be assigned a website in his name through which people could book cruises around the Middle East and Mediterranean, said Taylor.

The caller said the company could not operate the websites in its own name due to some "legal requirements" in the US and that it was looking for investors to lend their names for a share of profits from any bookings made through their website.

The man could log into the "back office" section of the website that had been set up for him, Taylor said.

It appeared to show the activity of visitors to his website and purchases made through it.

Taylor said the man felt this gave some transparency to what he was doing and earning.

The man was told he didn't need to do anything to earn the $8000 as the company would do all the selling.

He paid his "membership fees" using his credit card in January, but by February nothing had appeared in his 'back office' and no commissions had been earned. 

He was told that payments were pending or that [there] were technical issues.

Riccarton-Wigram community board member Debbie Mora said she had not seen such opposition to a liquor licence application in her two years on the board.

She was worried that, if approved, it could set a precedent for other fast-food outlets across New Zealand.

Wendy's chief executive Danielle Lendich said she had not seen the submissions and would not comment until she had a chance to review them.

She previously said the company wanted guests to enjoy a beer with a burger if they chose to. Non-alcoholic beverages would still be available, and no alcohol would be served at the drive-through or for takeaway guests.

Restaurant chain KFC will soon no longer be selling Pepsi soft drinks, with Coca-Cola taking over as its official drinks supplier.

Restaurant Brands New Zealand, the country's largest fast food operator, confirmed the exclusive deal with Coca-Cola will begin in mid-January next year.

The change in beverage supplier is part of KFC's transformation programme that started last year, and includes changes in marketing and longer opening hours. Coca-Cola will soon also be taking over at Restaurant Brands' Pizza Hut stores.

Veritas Investments says it has had no success selling Mad Butcher outlets currently for sale and that the cut-price meat chain continues to face a "challenging" environment.

However, it remains on track to meet profit guidance issued in June, in which it said annual profitability was expected to rise 28 per cent in the 2016 financial year - equivalent to its earlier expectation of results for the 2015 financial year. The company said then that it expected net profit of between $5.3 million and $5.5 million in the year ending June 30, 2016, up from the $4.3 million anticipated in 2015.

Restaurant Brands New Zealand boosted first-half profit 17 percent on increased sales of fried chicken at KFC and more Carl's Jr stores.

Profit rose to $13.4 million in the 28 weeks ended September 14, up from $11.5 million in the same period a year earlier, the company says.

Total store sales rose 13 percent to $210 million, while on a same-store basis sales increased 6.7 percent to $192 million. It had a total of 180 stores across its KFC, Carl's Jr, Starbucks Coffee and Pizza Hut brands, six more than a year earlier.

People would only be able to buy alcohol with food and managers would go through training programmes, Lendich said.

'It is Wendy's view that responsible consumption of alcohol in a family restaurant setting is a positive outcome and we have every confidence that we will sell alcohol safely and responsibly,' Lendich said.

'Our principal business will remain the provision of meals to the public and we have no intention of becoming a bar or hangout where people sit all night and drink beer.'

Christchurch West Information Hub co-ordinator Kirstin Dingwall-Okoye hoped to muster 'as many objections as possible.'

'This concerns me because Wendy's is a traditional burger restaurant, usually aimed at being family friendly,' she said.

'It is often packed with school-age children after school and in the holidays. It is also often staffed by kids as an after school/holiday job. It also concerns me that this may set a precedent for family 'burger' style restaurants, not just in Hornby, but in other centres around Christchurch and New Zealand. I believe it is imperative that a strong community lead (sic) objection is raised against this.'

Increasing profits isn’t just about making more sales or cutting costs – in fact, doing just one of those things and ignoring the others can actually reduce profits. Instead, by focusing on finding small improvements in each area individually, a franchisee can make a big difference to their ultimate profitability. Here are some tips on what to look for.

Steve Anderson, managing director of Foodstuffs which owns Liquorland, New World, Pak'nSave and other businesses, said a sale and purchase agreement had been signed for stores throughout the country, which would become franchised Liquorland outlets.

"There are a number of conditions still to be met as part of the due diligence process before the sale can be finalised, and once these conditions have been satisfied we will be in a position to provide more information," Anderson said.

7-Eleven boss, Warren Wilmot, rang his fellow board members at the Franchise Council of Australia (FCA) and asked to step down from the chairman's role to focus on his day job, according to an FCA spokesman.

The decision was understandable.

The FCA holds its AGM in early October, in the lead up to its national convention. It will coincide with a meeting of both the Asia/Pacific and global franchise councils

The scam is sweeping the country, with numerous workers discussing variations on the "cash scam" theme.

For instance, a permanent resident might pay back a smaller amount than a worker on a student visa who is only allowed to work 20 hours a week under the visa conditions.

As one store manager says: "Imagine working for $12 an hour and being taxed for $20 an hour or more. I didn't think they could get more odious but I was wrong."

Pranay Alawala, a former 7-Eleven worker in Brisbane who recently confronted his boss to pay back more than $40,000 to himself and a few other workers, said he had been contacted by many workers who have got caught up in the "cash scam".

Text messages between a franchisee and a 7-Eleven employee from a Brisbane store leave no doubt that this new fraud is widespread.

The new scam will be difficult to prove and could be an additional challenge for the independent panel that has been set up by 7-Eleven to investigate underpayment of wages.

The panel, headed by former ACCC chairman Allan Fels, a fierce critic of the 7-Eleven franchise model, will kick off this week.

Mr Fels hit the headlines a week ago when he said "the only way a franchisee can make a go of it in most cases is by underpaying wages, by illegal behaviour."

Workers are invited to come forward if they have been underpaid and the panel will assess their claims, but the success or otherwise of the panel will depend on whether they are given amnesty by the Abbott government and whether the onus is on the worker to prove their case, or the franchisee and 7-Eleven head office.

The menus appeared to breach NSW food labelling laws that demand fast food outlets show the kilojoules in each product next to the price and in the same size writing.

Health groups called for McDonald's to be brought into line with the rules and the chain now says it will change its menus across the country by the end of September.

"In consultation with the NSW Food Authority we have proactively made some edits to our new digital menu boards to enable additional comparison between products," McDonald's spokesman Chris Grant said on Monday.