Durban - Debonairs, the quick-service pizza franchise owned by JSE-listed Famous Brands, has recorded its highest turnover since opening 14 years ago and is scheduled to open its 200th store in the next few months.
Kevin Hedderwick, Famous Brands' chief operating officer, said on Friday: "May to end July is traditionally a fairly sluggish trading period, although we do derive some benefit from the tail end of the Easter holidays and the July school holidays.
"However, this strong performance from our brands to a range of factors, rather than simply seasonal success.
"The strong economic influence wielded by the emerging middle class and the demand for convenience continue to drive the group's profits."
Famous Brands will report its interim results in October. In the three months to July retail sales across the group's key brands, Debonairs, Steers and Wimpy, increased 15 percent.
Ricco Friedrich, an analyst at Sanlam Investment Management, said: "The group is incredibly bullish.
"Sales growth of 15 percent in existing stores is phenomenal if you consider that their inflation must be low. Combined with new stores opening, turnover growth for the year could be close to 20 percent."
This recent performance follows on from the good results the group delivered for the year to February, which showed headline earnings a share had increased by 48 percent to 58.6c.
Famous Brands also owns the Fishaways, House of Coffees, Brazilian and Whistle Stop restaurant brands and health food business Pouyoukas Foods.
The group, which is on an aggressive expansion drive, has opened 32 stores in the quarter under review. The group, which has 1 113 restaurants, plans to open 489 more stores by 2010.
It is also seeing results from stores opened in traditionally black areas.
Hedderwick said: "Particularly encouraging is the success of new restaurants opened in and on the fringes of traditional black areas.
These restaurants have exceeded our expectations and we are optimistic regarding further new stories in traditional black areas."
Gauteng is the group's core market but strong growth was also seen in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
Recent acquisitions of Baltimore, an ice cream manufacturer, and Trufruit, which makes juice, have shown turnover growth of 40 percent and 25 percent, respectively. This has been due to supplying products in the group's franchise network.
The acquisition of Wimpy in 2003 is still being bedded down but within the next two years, following Wimpy's full integration into the group, the food services division is expected to double turnover.
To date R12 million has been spent on resources and technology to facilitate the integration of the food services supply side of the business and a further R10 million has been budgeted.
Hedderwick said: "The integration has been slower than originally anticipated. We have some way to go before realising the full benefits of ... integrating the Wimpy food service supply business, but early indications are positive.
"I suspect the slower-than-expected integration of the Wimpy business is to do with increasing the internal sales of the food division into Wimpy franchises. If this is the case then it means the group is not yet in a position to manufacture sufficient food supplies. The slower integration is disappointing but not a major concern."
Famous Brands shares were unchanged at R8.50 on Friday, while the hotels and leisure sector rose 1.96 percent.