BASSETERRE St. Kitts, November 17th 2012 - After 25 years of operations locally and regionally, Mario Sabga-Aboud, group chairman, Pizza Boys Group of Companies, has declared there is a shortage of labour in his T&T operations, but the group is poised to continue its growth in the region.
Sabga-Aboud was speaking last Thursday to Business Guardian, at Pizza Boys head office on Lower Boundary Road in San Juan.
Retaining staff is a major issue because the job is viewed by incoming staff as “a stepping stone” so staff hired do not stay long.
“They come in and see the opportunity to go somewhere else. I think the big problem we have with them is retaining them because of the hours and because we work at night. Most of these workers have children and they have no one to take care of them, so it becomes a big problem to hold on,” he said.
Since it’s so difficult to source labour in T&T, is the possibility of sourcing labour regionally an option? According to Sabga-Aboud, attempts are being made to source labour regionally but with tighter laws imposed by the Government for granting of work permits, the obstacles have become enormous.
“The Ministry of Labour is becoming very hard on us and they are not renewing a lot of our work permits. We are trying to tell them that we have jobs. We are trying to take on people and we are not getting them. It is stifling our growth.”
He said his group has been employing people from Jamaica and Guyana with work permits, “but we have been getting a lot of problems to get them (the work permits) renewed. We have to put up a really big case to get them renewed. The rules are getting much stricter.”
Sabga-Aboud said that his labour problem is one that not only spans the restaurant business but the supermarket industry, the department stores and even factories in T&T.
“I wish we could find a way to solve this problem. I think it is by allowing us to import labour because it will only help grow business. By importing labour, I can be confident that I can open a new store . You give out construction contracts. You create employment for people. It’s a chain reaction.”
The shortage has not only stunted its potential for growth, but has pinched the profit line through having to pay higher hourly rates to its existing employees, he said.
“Labour has gone up because we pay a lot higher than the minimum wage to try to hold on to people so that has pushed our labour costs up. We pay most people $15, $16 per hour. Some locations get $20 per hour. We even advertise it, we have up a sign apply; $20 per hour and still it is very difficult to get people right now.”
Hardworking staff, loyal customers and the strength of the Rituals Coffee brand, he contends, has kept the growth trend upward but he did not want to disclose details.
“Sales are up, almost 20 plus per cent and we seem to be growing every year. Rituals is almost 33 per cent from last year. It’s a big jump and all the other brands are up, may be about 15 to 16 per cent. We are very proud of the Rituals brand. It seems to be getting stronger and stronger.”
Confident that the overall brands under Burger Boys Ltd can withstand challenges posed in the external environment, Sabga-Aboud said he is hoping to start operations of a new branch of Church’s Chicken in St Kitts at a cost of US$1 million. Though his group faces a labour shortage in T&T, that problem does not extend to St Kitts.
“Right now in T&T, we are looking to hire 200 employees. There is a big shortage and it really is affecting our growth, especially in the East/West corridor. In all the other islands people are begging for jobs. They are looking for jobs. We put out advertisements to invite applications in St Kitts for 50 people, we got more than 500 applying. If you see the qualifications you are getting!”
“We have ten St Kitts nationals being trained in St Lucia for the last two months and they go back to St Kitts on November 18. They are going to be joined by 40 more people we hired there. It is one of our largest stores. An average store takes on about 35 people but we hired 50 there,” Sabga-Aboud said.
He is targeting December to open the St Kitts Church’s Chicken because Carnival is celebrated there on December 26, the day after Christmas.
The St Kitts’ market is not new to his company. Two years ago, Sabga-Aboud introduced the Rituals brand there and it turned out successful. The St Kitts market is lucrative for his business model because Sabga-Aboud said there are about 4,500 medical students studying and “students love to drink coffee” while studying.
“We have three coffee shops in St Kitts, which is one of my higher volume islands in all of the Caribbean,” adding that he opened a new concept establishment about six months ago, first of its kind and started in St Kitts, called Rituals Sushi bar.
“It is packed up every night and you have to make your reservations a couple days in advance. I am now about to open Church’s Chicken on December 4. It is going to be the largest store I have ever done. I have 18 in T&T but this one is going to be the largest one I have ever done.”
He believes that Church’s Chicken would be another success.
“Caribbean people are chicken lovers. We love to eat fried chicken. Church’s (Chicken) brings a totally different perspective to me now on eating fried chicken. Everybody is very sensitive about fats and oils. We (Church’s Chicken) use a vegetable oil, soya bean oil with the least amount of fats as possible. We don’t pressure fry our chicken, we open fry our chicken and the oil doesn’t stay much in the chicken. We deliberately go for a bigger-sized birth so you get a bigger-sized chicken; more value for your money.
The St Kitts Church’s Chicken outlet would model the one that is in Europe with its “European-style decor package.”
Now that Burger Boys Ltd is celebrating its silver jubilee, what has made this company stay competitive?
It is all about service to its customers in order to retain them, says Sabga-Aboud, but the challenge of labour shortage still looms.
“The coffee business is a relationship. A coffee customer comes every single day around the same time for the same exact drink. They don’t change their drink. It’s a relationship you build between the customer and the employee.
“You walk into any of our stores in the morning, there is a line of people and before the customer even gets up to the cashier, the coffee is made already because the employee knows exactly what they drink. It’s a challenge, we do a lot of training; we believe training is the essence to everything. We train, we train, we train.
“We service hundreds of thousands a month. We listen. Because of technology, people are on Facebook and we get access to a lot of compliments and bad comments and we try to improve them. We take every call; we try to deal with our customers in that way.”
Adopting the business model which some bookstores have done internationally—having a coffee shop—is a lucrative idea. Barnes & Noble, Inc—headquartered in New York City, is one example of such a model.
In August, the company opened a store at the Port-of-Spain library and, according to Sabga-Aboud, the comments have been mainly good ones.
“I am proud of what we were able to accomplish in T&T. I am proud that we were so easily accepted in the Caribbean because they all look at us as one family.”
Given that Burger Boys Ltd’s method of growth is expansion, the company is targeting areas such as Phillipine, in San Fernando.
“We are now exploring doing one (opening a branch) in Phillipine. I am hoping to see whether I can get it open before the end of the year. We want to do one in Penal also. We are now negotiating for it to be done.
“I want to get a lot more of the southernly locations like Siparia. We already have one in Princes Town. We are now talking to an insurance company in Port-of-Spain, which is very excited to do one in their office building. I have been exploring Penal. I drove up the other day, on a Sunday, to look at locations since the traffic is too much on weekdays,” he said.
Ramsaran Street, Chaguanas, is another location for an outlet which is expected to be opened next month as well as at Super Quality Foods located in the Trincity Industrial Estate.
Asked about the future, Sabga-Aboud said it’s all about starting your day the Rituals way.
“Rituals has become a place that you want to a be a part of; that you want to come and socialise. That is how I start my day every morning.
“I am in my coffee shop at 6.30am with my three papers: I always read the Guardian first. It gives me that little time to sit down, look at the customers come in and out, talk to some customers, watch what the service is like.
“I spend an hour so I can read my papers, have my coffee and plan out my day. My dream and my focus is to try to open as many Rituals as I can in the next three four years, to be accessible to anyone in T&T within a 10 to 15 minute car drive.”
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