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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
After years of weighing up an incursion, Wendy’s president Abigail Pringle has earmarked Australia as “a strategic market for long-term growth”.<\/p>\n
“Flynn Restaurant Group has incredible experience in the restaurant space, and we are thrilled to expand our relationship with them,” Ms Pringle said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Flynn chief operating officer Ron Bellamy says Wendy’s is a “tremendous brand” with untapped potential outside the US.<\/p>\n
“We think it is an especially great fit for Australia, given the savvy nature of the Australian consumer,” he said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n