Under The Grill

His marketing nous loves the challenge of making Grill’d a dining experience. When looking for creatives to come up with the look of the stores, those from outside the food sector were called upon to give a fresh approach. "We wanted somebody who was a non-food-based designer so they could look at this with different eyes," he explains. "Because we’re playing in a competitive landscape, or a category that’s dominated by multi-nationals, we didn’t want to be confused with them in the slightest."

The first step towards making Grill’d a national business is to hit the Queensland market, with the first store opening this year. The aim is to get up to five stores operational in the Sunshine State before launching in New South Wales. "To be a national brand we have to be in the NSW market," he says. "NSW is obviously a challenging territory and we want to go there and have money in our pockets to grow quickly."

While he’s naturally proud of his product (and craves a Grill’d burger if he hasn’t had one for a day or two), it’s the two key elements of staff and store location that he keeps coming back to as the backbone, and therefore the major challenge for the business. "Undoubtedly we are very proud to be a healthy burger expert but our sustainability, our growth, will be around those two things—people and properties." Put it all together, and he admits it’s a package with great potential. "We’re just at the beginning of our journey."