Gold Coast’s Retail Food Group: “no unusual trends in fee payments” despite boycott

RETAIL Food Group says a call for franchisees to boycott fees has fallen flat, reporting “no unusual trends in fee payments” since the Bulletin revealed the plan last month.

RFG have denied any unusual trends in fee payments.

RETAIL Food Group says a call for franchisees to boycott fees has fallen flat, reporting “no unusual trends in fee payments” since the Bulletin revealed the plan last month.

The article outlined how RFG had lost half its value when it resumed trade that day at its lowest price in a decade and that some operators were planning to boycott their franchise fees of about $5000/month.

RFG media adviser Richard Forbes took issue with a quote from one of the franchisees in the story.

“An anonymous franchisee said that he belonged to a group of 500 and implied half of that group would boycott fees,” he said.

“RFG can report that no unusual trends in fee payments have been identified.”

Mr Forbes then himself requested anonymity for the Bulletin’s coverage. The request was denied.

FRANCHISEES PLEAD FOR CHEAPER COFFEE

Retail Food Group chairman Colin Archer and managing director Andre Nell.

The Bulletin spoke to three separate local franchisees of Gold Coast Gloria Jeans outlets yesterday.

They do not want to be named publicly after the company warned them against speaking to the media after a series of explosive articles about RFG’s treatment of franchisees.

Franchisees were told by head office in December they may be breaching their contracts if they did not follow RFG’s strict media protocol.

Despite the apparent lack of “unusual trends in fee payments”, two of the three franchisees the Bulletin spoke to have not paid their franchise fees.

Both say they have changed their bank account details to prevent RFG from removing the fees.

“There’s nothing they can do if you change your bank details, you just have to pay for the product upfront,” one franchisee said.

“We have customers asking us about RFG all the time, we constantly get these questions — it’s not great.

“The fact that you can’t sell your business ... is not great.”

The second current Gloria Jeans franchisee, who also declined to be publicly identified, said their fees were two weeks overdue after they closed the account RFG was drawing money from.

“We haven’t paid our franchise fees and they haven’t contacted us,” the franchisee said.

“They haven’t said anything about the fees or anything about the stock, but they haven’t been able to get money out.”