Alex Springer joked his “international project” with wife Méline Enguent began well before the pair became master franchisees and brought charcuterie board concept Graze Craze to France.
“I’m German, Méline is French,” Springer explained, and they began looking for a new food business in 2020 after moving from Germany to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in southeastern France four years prior. Graze Craze, which they discovered after talking to United Franchise Group representatives at a trade show in Paris, seemed an ideal fit.
“We quickly saw the advantages of this concept. It’s fresh product and it’s in correlation with the French style of eating,” said Springer. “Here, we call it aperitif or apéro time, where people will eat and drink late into the night.”
Enguent noted Graze Craze likewise is in line with “new tendencies we saw after COVID, this want to gather again and also to have quick delivery.” In addition to its consumer appeal, Graze Craze is positioned as a fresh alternative for corporate catering, and “totally changes the perception of meetings” for French businesses,” she added.
Enguent and Springer opened their first Graze Craze in October in Ollioules, close to the French Riviera city of Toulon. “In a 20-minute drive we have around half a million people and about 50,000 businesses,” said Enguent. “We’re a coastal city, a harbor city, and a rather large tourist destination.”
As the master franchisees for the country, Enguent and Springer will sign on and support sub-franchisees and likely open more of their own locations. Graze Craze is their second franchise brand. The first, Flunch, is what brought them back to France in 2016.
“I got a call from my father on a Friday telling us his director, who’d been there for 19 years, was leaving,” said Enguent, whose background is in international business. “That Monday, we gave our notices to our employers and said, we’re going to embrace the entrepreneurship life.”
The couple took over the Flunch business in Ollioules that Enguent’s father had been running since 1995 as one of the early franchisees for the self-service, cafeteria-style restaurant concept. Owned by the Mulliez family, which Springer called “one of the most powerful families in France,” Flunch has more than 160 locations, including a handful in Italy.
“We serve 300 to 400 people a day,” said Enguent of their restaurant, and the more complex operations of Flunch played into their decision to find a simpler model, one that’s also less expensive to run than a traditional restaurant.
Like many countries in Europe, France has been hit with high energy prices due to lingering effects of the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and Israel-Hamas conflict. The Graze Craze model, with its charcuterie board menu of cured meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, dips, jams and crackers, doesn’t require the purchase of costly kitchen equipment. “We’re serving mainly products that don’t need to be cooked,” said Springer, and stores typically occupy just 800 to 1,200 square feet.
Since opening their store less than six months ago, Springer and Enguent have focused heavily on marketing and brand awareness efforts, tapping into their professional networks to push office orders and corporate gifting, which then serve to help create individual customers. “People see it in a corporate setting, then they are curious and will go online and order,” said Enguent as she emphasized the importance of getting outside the store to educate the market.
“The first learning is we thought people would go through the website to order. We are seeing traffic, but not conversion,” she said. “The conversion comes from the work we’ve been putting into networking. Meeting people and explaining what Graze Craze is all about.”
UFG leverages international footprint
Part of the Big Flavor Brands food division of Starpoint Brands, which itself includes multiple franchises within United Franchise Group, Graze Craze has 64 locations open in the United States. UFG bought a majority stake in Graze Craze’s franchising arm and began selling units in June 2021, folding the business into the newly created Big Flavor Brands in 2023.
Many of UFG’s brands, including Signarama, Transworld Business Advisors and Fully Promoted, have international locations, and UFG has a corporate office in Sydney, Australia. “International expansion is kind of ingrained in Starpoint and UFG from when we were just Signarama,” said Graze Craze President Cory Hibbard. “I don’t think we ever looked at Graze Craze and thought international wouldn’t be a big piece of expansion early on.”
The brand is opening a new store just about every week in the U.S., said Hibbard, and with no other franchise doing charcuterie boxes and boards at scale, Graze Craze wants to be first to market internationally as well. The company debuted its corporate store in Sydney last fall, with plans to sell it to a franchisee who would then oversee the concept’s growth in Australia, following the master franchise approach UFG takes with its other brands.
Graze Craze has master franchisees in Quebec, Dario Subotic and Tea Maric, who are preparing to open their first location, and the brand is also targeting London and other European markets. The “grazing” style of eating inherent in charcuterie has “been around for hundreds of years,” noted Hibbard, which indicates staying power for Graze Craze. “We’re not just trying to capitalize on a trend.”
Franchisees, whether they’re in the U.S. or another country, need to be comfortable persevering and pushing through the challenges of growing an upstart brand, said Hibbard, and be willing to get outside their stores to drive awareness.
“We almost look at this business as a marketing business, not a food business, because we really need to educate customers about who we are and the different applications for charcuterie,” he said. Franchisees “need that passion and enthusiasm to make a splash in the market.”
