Wendy's celebrates 25 years in new zealand

Opening its first restaurant in Te Atatu in 1988, the West Auckland-based Wendy's operates a chain of 18 stores around the North Island with four more set to open this year. Wendy’s, which was founded in the US in 1969, overtook Burger King in 2012 as the second-largest burger chain by overall sales after McDonald's.

While most Wendy's in the US are franchised, the master licence for New Zealand is held by the Lendich family which owns all the stores here and does not sub-franchise individual units to other operators. Wendy’s has restaurants in over 25 countries but withdrew from Australia in the 1980s.

Celebrating its 25^th birthday at the newly-refurbished Te Atatu outlet, Wendy’s invited the wider community and customers to enjoy the family-friendly event. A special retro menu offered menu items at 1988 prices, including a “quarter-century” quarter pound cheeseburger at the original price of $3.30 and spaghetti bolognese brought back especially for the celebration.

Dave Vousden, the face of Wendy’s in New Zealand for over 20 years, was a special guest, as were Vodafone Warriors Kevin Locke, John Palavi, Jerome Ropati and Dane Nielsen.

Loyal Suppliers

Wendy’s CEO Danielle Lendich described the company as a family-owned business with old-fashioned values and said the milestone was an opportunity to recognise the company’s many longstanding suppliers.

Three of Wendy’s suppliers have been with it from the start, said Ms. Lendich. ‘Wendy’s believes that real quality taste starts with real quality, fresh local ingredients, which is why we source almost all our ingredients from within New Zealand. Such relationships are integral to the success of Wendy’s; these people are our family.’

Over the past 25 years Wendy’s customers have chewed through more than 1.2 million kilos of tomatoes and 100,000 crates of iceberg lettuce from vegetable supplier Ray Payne. Hungry customers have also enjoyed 8,000 tonnes of fresh prime New Zealand beef from Wilson Hellaby and 1,790 tonnes of sauce from Groenz.

New look

Following similar changes in the United States, Wendy’s New Zealand is also embracing the fresh new look launched in the US and Canada. The first change in 30 years to the logo sees it stripped back with a modernised and more mature-looking ‘Wendy’ character and a more contemporary font that almost looks like Wendy’s signature. The logo has begun appearing in the company’s advertising this month, as well as on product packaging, in-store signage, online and on the Wendy’s app.

The makeover also extends to Wendy’s stores, with innovations in newly-refurbished stores including a new two-sided grill system (as used by Wendy’s in the US) that is currently being tested in Te Atatu.

‘The new system reduces the cooking time as both sides of the beef are cooked at once,’ says Ms. Lendich. ‘It also enhances food safety and opens up possibilities for new products, so if we’re happy with how things go with the test model we’ll look to roll this out to other restaurants.’

New stores

Wendy’s New Zealand recently opened a new store in Palmerston North which broke sales records, and more new stores are scheduled to open in Frankton, Hamilton in June, Whangarei and Te Rapa, Hamilton in September and Hornby, Christchurch in November.

Ms. Lendich said the company is also looking at other stores further afield such as in Wellington, Christchurch central, Dunedin and Hawkes Bay over the medium-to-long term. The new openings come on the back of the recent refurbishment of existing stores in Auckland.