Freshly Chopped, the rapidly-expanding Dublin-based food retailer, reported a sharp rise in profits last year.
Newly-filed abridged accounts for the healthy fast food firm show accumulated profits rose from just €19,507in 2014 to €232,713 in 2015.
The increase in profits came despite a rise in employment costs as staffing levels jumped from just seven employees to 36 over the year. The group was holding further open interviews last week as it looks to add further staff.
Staff-related costs, including wages and salaries rose from €177,567 to €505,226 with directors’ remuneration increasing to €44,400 from €30,200.
Cofounder Brian Lee, a finalist in this year's EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards, set up the company with partner Chen Chen in 2012.
"2015 was a real growth year for Chopped. We doubled our turnover to €2 million and recorded a healthy profit. While we're very happy with the accounts for 2015, we're even happier with how 2016 is going," Mr Lee told The Irish Times.
The group says it is on track to have over 20 outlets open by the end of 2016.
Freshly Chopped’s goal is to offer healthy takeaway options for customers, through a range of salads, wraps, sandwiches and soups. The company currently has seven outlets in Dublin, many of which are franchises.
The single store franchise fee for Chopped is €15,000, with the company estimating the turnkey capital cost to open an outlet to be about €150,000. The company charges a royalty fee to franchisees that is equivalent to 5 per cent of net sales.
“Our mission is to bring healthy fast food to as many people as we can and we’ve really ramped this up in 2016 with our franchise rollout. We’ve opened a number of new outlets and we’ve more planned and we’ve also entered into strategic partnerships that will help fuel Chopped’s continued expansion over the next few years.”
Mr Lee recently told The Irish Times that Freshly Chopped is aiming to open at least 10 new outlets in Ireland this year while also raising about €3 million to fund an expansion into Britain.
