Of course it does so what is my real question? What kind of territory rights does your franchise give you? In a specialty retail business, boundaries are very important.
So what territory definition comes with a Great Harvest bread franchise?
We give incredibly generous territory protection rights. You have the right to a ten mile radius (not diameter) or 300,000 people, which ever is smaller. Don’t focus on which ever is smaller. Both of those are huge.
We believe that your success is our success, so we see value in this offer to you of generous territory rights. We also give eligible franchisees a window of opportunity to expand ahead of a new candidate. (It's similar to a right of first refusal, but with a bread business twist, so give our development team a call at 800.442.0424 if you have questions.) All of this can be maddening to someone applying to open a new bakery, but we do what we do for everyone’s good.
Large territories also reduce friction in the learning community. When you know that your Great Harvest neighbor can’t place another bakery across the street, it makes it a lot easier to share information and help each other with advice and support about the day to day challenges of running a local business.
We want your Great Harvest bakery to be as successful as possible and do not want to have anyone worry about density. We also allow people to develop multiple stores within their own territory. That just makes sense.
Our goal is to have as many successful bakeries as possible. Key word = successful. All of that said, our most dominant market is our most dense. What we do see is that a concentration of stores creates a tide that floats all boats. Which means our territory model makes sense. Grant people strong rights. Encourage dense development. Allow the market to reward consistent service and quality across that geography.
