Shingle Inn

• CS_ShingleInn_web.pdf

CS_ShingleInn_web.pdf

Shingle Inn is a family owned and operated bakery and cafe business based in Brisbane, with origins stretching back as far as the 1930′s. The Bellchambers family acquired the original Shingle Inn business in 1975 and focussed on maintaining staff and food standards in accordance with Shingle Inn’s distinguished history.

Since then, Shingle Inn has expanded to a network of seven cafes in and around Brisbane. All the Shingle Inn cafes maintain the tradition of the original store, with opulent decor and high quality food, cakes, tea and coffee. Many of the Shingle Inn products are produced at a centralised production facility, which ensures the highest quality and standards are maintained consistently throughout all Shingle Inn cafes.

The Challenge

Shingle Inn has a well recognised brand within the Queensland market and sought to leverage this in growing a significant retail network. The key challenges facing Shingle Inn in achieving their objectives were to:

The Solution 

Franchising was identified early as a strategy to enable Shingle Inn to achieve its growth objectives, and provided an opportunity to address the key challenges of growing a significant network throughout Queensland and Australia.

The ensuing project involved assessing the economic feasibility of a franchise model, and addressed the organisational issues associated with successfully growing and managing both a retail network and production facility. 

Central to the solution was the consideration of the retail network and centralised production facility as two separate profit centres. The optimum structure of the retail network and the product lines with a focus on transfer pricing between the two profit centres enabled Shingle Inn management to understand the impact of product manufacturing on profitability. 

The Outcomes 

DCS worked closely with the management team at Shingle Inn to overcome the identified challenges, which resulted in the following outcomes: 

• A full franchising program was developed to facilitate growth of the retail network.
• An increased understanding of the capacity, profitability and scalability of the production facility resulted in a more structured and profitable business.
• A framework was developed to assist Shingle Inn management in understanding the capacity of current and future production with a focus on profitability. This enabled Shingle Inn to maximise returns on already invested capital and establish a new production facility with minimal additional capital requirements.
• Through a structured approach to growth and a focus on maximising profit at both a retail and production level, Shingle Inn is now in a position to execute a self-funded growth strategy throughout Queensland.

DC Strategy, business growth specialists.

Level 5, 530 Collins Street,
Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia
growth@dcstrategy.com
+61 (0)3 8102 9200