Tootoomoo, the London-based restaurant chain specialising in pan-Asian cuisine, is planning an expansion into the Irish retail lunch market following success with Sainsbury’s supermarkets in the UK.
“People want something different, they are bored with the same, old lunch concept”, said Philip McGuinness, the Irish founder of Tootoomoo, whose branded meals, such as noodles, rolls and tacos, are selling well nationally in the UK retail giant’s stores.
Tootoomoo is finalising distribution partnerships in Ireland, which is one of the company’s “key focus areas” as it seeks to bring “the vibrant energy of Asian street markets” to Irish lunch options.
Asian food is the fastest-growing category in the UK and Ireland, McGuinness said, forecasting sales of £30 million (€35.6 million) over the next three years across Ireland, UK and western Europe.
In 2021, Tootoomoo expanded into retail offerings, joining forces with Sainsbury’s to develop a Hanoi Café-inspired alternative in the prepared lunch market. Its products went on sale in store in April.
The brand, which was founded in 2013, started off as a single London restaurant and was developed into a chain of franchised locations across the north of the city.
After graduating from the UCD Smurfit Business School, Mr McGuinness worked in management roles across retail brands, with Tesco and the Dairygold Cooperative before moving to London.
Inspired by street food tastes he encountered while travelling across Asia, Mr McGuinness said he “fell in love” with the cuisine and wanted to bring back to London the flavours people found while travelling.
“I took a lease on a failed site in Crouch End in north London,” he said. “I redesigned the interior of the site with the concept of Tootoomoo, an Indonesian folklore about a girl and a giant.”
Tootoomoo is introducing new markets to the tastes of Asian food that had excited its founder.
“We had to have a story that had meaning and had substance,” Mr McGuinness said, with the company adapting Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese taste profiles in search of the “perfect Asian fusion”.
“The way you think of Old El Paso and Mexican food, in the same way within the next three years when you think of pan-Asian food you will think of Tootoomoo.”
