Mister Donut plans aggressive sales campaigns

FOOD

Central Restaurant Group (CRG) expects sales of Mister Donut will grow by 7-10% to 1.3 billion baht this year, driven by aggressive marketing campaigns and new products.

Despite falling consumer spending during the recession, CRG is confident that its practical marketing strategy will increase sales and profits. In the first half, Mister Donut sales surged 7% year-on-year to 600 million baht.

Sucheep Tamacheepjareon, general manager for the Mister Donut brand, said it would launch new marketing campaigns to match demand of its 150,000 members, 45,000 of whom are active and buy doughnuts four times a month.

"A doughnut is not expensive and everyone can buy one piece for 10 baht. The economic crisis cannot hurt doughnut demand," he said.

Besides, CRG plans to import ingredients for three new products from the brand owner in Japan to attract new customers and raise its market share from 65% to 70% by the end of this year.

The company continues to invest even though the economy is slowing. At least 10 new outlets will be opened and five existing ones will be renovated, with a combined budget of 75 million baht. At the present, Mister Donut has 214 outlets nationwide, of which 108 are in Bangkok and 106 in the provinces.

In the next three to five years, CRG will apply a new outlet concept with the Japanese design and a variety of products such as breakfast menus. It has already tested this idea today at 81 outlets.

Mr Sucheep said the current decoration of Mister Donut outlets used only red and yellow colours. The Japanese design will include wood texture.

Currently, Mister Donut contributes 40% of total sales of CRG, expected to increase in the second half after the company closed down its Pizza Hut operation in April.

During the first quarter of this year, the food business of CRG, which contributed 50.9% to the revenue of Central Plaza Hotel Plc (Centel), fell 2.8% due to economic and political uncertainties.

Centel reported a quarterly net profit of 125 million baht on revenues of 2.15 billion, compared to a net profit of 271 million baht and revenues of 2.13 billion baht in the same period last year.