The GoTo Foods conference started with a brand introduction, complete with flag-waving. | Photos by Jonathan Maze.
Before he took the helm of GoTo Foods in December, Omer Gajial worked in the supermarket industry, with the chain Albertsons, the CPG company PepsiCo and the tech company Amazon.
Yet as he got on stage at the fast-food chain operator’s annual franchise conference in Atlanta last month, Gajial talked more like a science teacher. “I’m talking about improving our chemistry with our guests and also improving the physics of our business,” he said in front of a crowd of franchisees of GoTo Foods brands, including McAlister’s Deli, Auntie Anne’s, Cinnabon, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Carvel and Jamba.
To Gajial, the “chemistry” is the customer experience and the “physics” is the unit economics. They, along with technology, are part of Gajial’s three-part plan for the company he now leads.
The changes will be crucial for GoTo Foods to reach its long-stated goal. The company has gone through a number of changes in recent years, not the least of which was the hiring of Gajial as well as a corporate rebranding and new hires.
The conference came two years after the former Focus Brands announced its new corporate moniker. The company, put together from the first acquisitions of the private-equity firm Roark Capital, in February announced a new CFO in Brett Ubl and a new chief growth officer in Francisco Bram.
Three other executives, meanwhile, were given expanded role, including Mike Freeman, EVP and president of the brands, Urvi Patel, SVP of brands and chief brand officer of Cinnabon, and Chris McNutt, chief supply chain officer.
Globally, the company’s brands have 7,300 stores in more than 70 countries and GoTo Foods last year reached deals to open another 1,400.
But from a sales standpoint many of the chains have stagnated, at least in the U.S. All but one of the chains, the pretzel concept Auntie Anne’s, reported negative U.S. system sales in 2024, according to data from Restaurant Business sister company Technomic. Jim Holthouser, who had led the company for six years, announced his retirement.
Gajial met with more than 80 franchisees and visited more than 50 locations in the more than two months since his arrival and spoke with a number of customers. He also said that he paid close attention to the team, the technology and the company’s various brands.
“I’ve learned a bunch,” he said in an interview. “It’s been a great experience to learn the business, but also to understand what’s working, what’s not working, and the opportunity ahead of us to delight our customers and create meaningful value for our franchisees.”
He called that opportunity “abundantly clear.”
In his presentation to franchisees, Gajial vowed to “delight our customers, grow traffic and improve unit level economics and also win in the marketplace.”
Gajial called unit economics GoTo Foods’ top priority, which is crucial for a company that relies on franchisees to run its restaurants. He cited a new prototype from Schlotzsky’s Deli, which lowers the cost to build and operate by 15% to 20%. He also cited a Jamba prototype that cuts the build-out costs by 20% to 25%.
Unit economics is important for any franchise because if stores don’t generate a return on investment then existing or prospective franchisees don’t open new locations. “We take your investment in this business very seriously,” Gajial told franchisees.
But unit economics are made up of both cost and revenues, and GoTo Foods needs to generate more revenue. Each of the brands is focused on building more sales through a variety of channels, notably catering.
Inside the conference’s exhibit hall, each of the chains had their own booths, where they demonstrated upcoming menu items and other new ideas. And all of them showed off some kind of catering operation—or catering-adjacent operation, in the case of the cakes at Carvel. There were acai bowls and large boxes to transport juices at Jamba and a build-your-own baked potato bar at McAlister’s Deli.
Each of the brands, such as McAlister’s Deli, featured a catering display.
Gajial said that the brands need to do a better job of marketing the benefits of some of its products. For instance, a product may have a good amount of protein but the company doesn’t call it out. “I think we at times have the right product, but the way we frame it and we present it to the customer, we leave a little bit for the customer to translate the benefits of that product,” he said. “While the benefits are there, we don’t call them out.”
Technology can also help build unit economics, both by making the operations of the restaurant more efficient while providing opportunities through loyalty programs to build sales.
Gajial told franchisees that the company has a “solid foundation” on technology but acknowledged there is “more work to do” to get where GoTo Foods wants to be.
“We’ve invested a lot in building technology, but putting the pieces together in service of the customer and putting the pieces together in service of the franchisee is the last leg where technology can truly be a multiplier,” Gajial said in an interview.
And then there is the customer experience. GoTo Foods is working on prototypes at its brands designed to improve that experience, such as at Auntie Anne’s, where the company is more eagerly displaying its pretzel-making. Its loyalty programs added more than 4 million members last year.
Yet translating that customer experience to the stores is a challenge in a franchise because it’s up to franchisees to get the job done. When asked about that, Gajial said the company relies on its franchisee advisory councils (FACs) to help with those efforts. And during the conference he acknowledged the members of those councils from the stage.
“We have a very engaged, deeply connected, deeply invested franchisee councils for each brand,” Gajial said, noting that there are large and small franchisees who sit on the councils. “We have huge diversity in terms of who represents the FAC, and we leverage the FACs to design new solutions, new products or a new approach toward brand engagement with our customers.”
