Yolk Brands bets on burger, chicken for global expansion
Pickl and BonBird are going places in the next half decade.
Dubai-based Yolk Brands aims to expand to 500 restaurants globally in the next five years by scaling its premium burger brand Pickl through key cities in the Asia-Pacific and rolling out its fried chicken label BonBird across high-growth regions.
The group plans to challenge markets in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia with Pickl, whilst BonBird would target markets like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, Stephen Flawith, co-founder and CEO at Yolk Brands, told QSR Media.
“Singapore and Hong Kong are two of my favourite cities in the world, but as isolated cities, it is a lot easier for my team strategically to travel to these cities and grow Pickl,” he said via Zoom.
Flawith expects Pickl to easily grow to 12 restaurants in Singapore and to 15 branches in Hong Kong.
“But for Bonbird, it’s uncapped,” he said. “We can go to Singapore and do the same number of restaurants as Pickl, but in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, we can go in and build 100 to 200 restaurants.”
Yolk Brands has 35 Pickl and 18 BonBird branches across the Middle East, including the United Aram Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman, and Pakistan.
Yolk Brands has signed its biggest franchise deal with City Restaurants Group to bring BonBird to the UK. The partners plan to open 50 restaurants in the next five years across the country, with the first five expected to open by year-end.
Yolk Brands started as one restaurant—Pickl—in April 2019, promising fresh fast-food that uses premium ingredients. Its main selling point was burgers made with beef without additives, hormones, and antibiotics.
Pickl later expanded into chicken burgers with several spice levels, culminating in the Reaper—a heat-packed sandwich available only to dine-in customers.
Pickl opened its second branch in 2019, a year before the global COVID-19 pandemic forced many companies to shut down.
“We were really excited to expand the brand, but then 2020 rolled in,” Flawith said. “So Nabil Al Rantisi, my business partner, and I kind of just sat there and said to each other: ‘Well, look, either everything’s gonna end or we’re going to come out of this at some point.’”
“We didn’t want to lay off employees or introduce salary cuts. So we pivoted, and decided to expand that year,” he added.
By the end of 2020, the company had opened eight branches with 120 staff on board. Flawith said this decision was a turning point that led to their brand being recognised as a home-grown fast-food in Dubai.
“From there, we took Pickl and we started to build this behemoth team,” the CEO said. “I brought in talent from McDonald’s, Five Guys, Shake Shack, and Deliveroo to mould and sculpt the company in the right way—to take Pickl in the position where we were ready for franchising.”
In 2022, Pickl launched its first franchise in Bahrain. Flawith noted that at about the same time, they started conceptualising BonBird for affordable bone-in chicken tenders, chicken burgers, and a selection of sides and wraps. It was launched a year later.
He said Yolk Brands consults its local partners about what flavours or spices would work best in a particular country or region, but when all else fails, it won’t hurt to check the market pulse by selling a product outright.
This happened in Pakistan, where the fast-food chain’s Korean burger became an instant hit, he added.
Flawith is bullish about the quick-service restaurant market in the Middle East, but success depends on strict product quality, especially with the rise of social media and healthy lifestyles.
Yolk Brands has confirmed rollout agreements for about 200 more stores in the next four years, including BonBird’s upcoming entry into the UK. The five-year target of 500 restaurants suggests a significant acceleration in the final stretch.
Much of the growth is expected to come from new markets like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia for Pickl, and Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand for BonBird, Flawith said.
