Lamb on Menu Helps Noodle Box Travel
A HOME-GROWN fast food franchisor, Noodle Box, is venturing into the Middle East with plans to open up 65 restaurants over the next five years and bite a chunk out of the growing fast-food market.
The $50 million restaurant chain has signed a franchise arrangement with Himmah Foods, a Saudi Arabian company which also launched the New York-based frozen dessert chain Tasti D-lite in Riyadh.
The first Noodle Box restaurant in Saudi Arabia will open in the first week of November, followed by two more restaurants before Christmas.
Head chef Justin Cho said he had to redesign the menu, by substituting pork with lamb and using glazed soy sauce instead of alcohol-based mirin to make teriyaki sauce.
Mr Cho said Australian restaurants were well positioned to expand globally, having already catered for the palates of different ethnic groups.
“The Australian taste is very globalised,” he said.
“There are Europeans here, Asians here and Middle Easterners here. Middle Easterners love the lamb.”
Mr Cho said lamb-based noodle dishes, which were originally designed for the Australia Day promotion, took off in Melbourne’s multicultural suburb of Roxburgh Park, where nearly 30 per cent of the population is Muslim.
In addition to tweaking the menu, the noodle chain also had to substitute fresh noodles with dried ones to deal with the difficulties with finding a Middle East-based supplier.
The cultural customs in Saudi Arabia influenced the design of the restaurants, which will be on a split level to provide separate dining areas for families and single men.
The franchisees will be based in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the near future, but it may also expand into other Middle Eastern countries such as Kuwait and Qatar.
Noodle Box chief Ian Martin said Saudi Arabia was fast becoming a lucrative market for international fast-food chains, particularly in the younger demographic market.
“As they get greater exposure to Western brands, their palates develop,” Mr Martin said.
The fast-food market in Saudi Arabia was valued at 15.7 billion Saudi riyal ($4.8 billion) in 2012, up 9pc from the previous year, according to the latest Euromonitor report.
A growing number of Asian expats in Saudi Arabia has also upped the demand for noodle consumption, according to the report.
Having led the financial operations of Yum! Brands, Burger King Corp and Gloria Jean’s Coffees International in the Asia-Pacific region and Middle East, Mr Martin saw a rise in health consciousness in the fast-food industry over the past few years.
He said a similar trend in the Middle East will work in the favour of Noodle Box, which markets itself as providing authentic, high-quality and fresh noodle-based meals.
“They are also demonstrating the same social attributes like raising health (consciousness). People are moving away from less healthy food to more fresh ingredients,” he said.
Misa Han
Farm Weekly