US burger chain Wendy’s squares up Australian market

AMERICAN fast food chain Wendy’s will soon be slinging burgers on Australian shores after the company announced its intention to develop 200 restaurants by mid-next decade.

The burger brand will land in Australia after 2025 after inking a deal with Pizza Hut owner Flynn Restaurant Group – the world’s largest franchise operator.

After years of weighing up an incursion, Wendy’s president Abigail Pringle has earmarked Australia as “a strategic market for long-term growth”.

“Flynn Restaurant Group has incredible experience in the restaurant space, and we are thrilled to expand our relationship with them,” Ms Pringle said.

Wendy’s says there is strong interest from the Australian public for the brand, citing a positive reaction from Sydneysiders to a one-day pop-up event in 2021.

Flynn chief operating officer Ron Bellamy says Wendy’s is a “tremendous brand” with untapped potential outside the US.

“We think it is an especially great fit for Australia, given the savvy nature of the Australian consumer,” he said.

Wendy’s is the world’s third-largest burger chain, after McDonald’s and Burger King and is renowned in the US for its square hamburger patties and the Frosty – a viscous milkshake thickened with starches.

The company attempted an unsuccessful foray into the Australian market in the 1980s when its 11 stores were snapped up by Hungry Jack’s owner Jack Cowin.

Speculation had been rumbling Wendy’s longstanding intention to return down under faced a roadblock in the form of a trademark challenge from unrelated local brand Wendy’s Milk Bar – a 120-store franchise established in South Australia in 1979.

But intellectual property lawyer Blair Beven told the New York Times in February Wendy’s is unlikely to face a legal obstacle, given it possesses its own longstanding trademark in Australia.

– JACOB SHTEYMAN/ AAP IMAGE