This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on August 15, 2022.
In August 2022, Thailand-based Minor International released updated financials. In the first half of 2022, its restaurant division, Minor Food, generated revenue of THB 12.8 billion, equivalent to RMB 2.44 billion. Thailand was its largest revenue market, followed by mainland China. Thailand revenue grew year on year, while mainland China revenue declined 20%.
Minor Food operates more than a dozen restaurant brands, including The Pizza Company, Swensen's, Sizzler, Dairy Queen, Burger King, Thai Express, The Coffee Club, Ribs and Rumps, BreadTalk Thailand, and Riverside.
Minor began with restaurant franchising. It brought Swensen's to Thailand in 1986, Sizzler in 1992, Dairy Queen in 1996, and Burger King in 2000. In the early years, its model was mainly to introduce U.S. foodservice brands into Thailand.
In 2001, it launched its own pizza chain, The Pizza Company. In 2005, it made its first overseas investment by entering China.
Key investment and acquisition milestones included:
Minor International’s first-quarter reporting showed that, by store count, Minor Food’s largest brand was The Pizza Company, followed by Dairy Queen and The Coffee Club. Company-owned and franchised stores were roughly split half and half. By geography, Thailand accounted for 74% of the store base, followed by Australia and China.
By revenue, The Pizza Company was also the largest brand, followed by Riverside. The Coffee Club and Thai Express ranked next. Revenue was mainly generated in Thailand, followed by China and Australia.
According to second-quarter reporting, Minor Food had 2,459 restaurants in total: 1,232 company-owned stores and 1,227 franchised stores. The network was concentrated in Thailand, then Australia and China.
By brand, the largest was Minor’s self-developed The Pizza Company. Its two ice cream brands, Dairy Queen and Swensen's, had 494 and 338 stores respectively, or 832 combined. The coffee brands The Coffee Club and Coffee Journey had 411 and 52 stores respectively.
The Pizza Company is Minor Food’s self-developed pizza chain and is described as Thailand’s largest pizza chain. The article notes that after a dispute with Pizza Hut, Minor converted Pizza Hut stores into The Pizza Company stores and later beat Pizza Hut in the Thai market. As of the end of June 2022, The Pizza Company had 573 stores.
Coffee Journey is also a Minor Food-developed brand. It opened its first store in 2020 and had 52 stores by the end of June 2022.
Minor’s agency/franchise brands include Swensen's and Dairy Queen. As of the end of June 2022, Swensen's had 338 stores and Dairy Queen had 494. Burger King had 122 stores. Sizzler, positioned around steak and salad, had 66 stores.
Investment and acquisition brands included The Coffee Club, an Australian coffee chain that Minor initially invested in and later controlled. It had 411 stores by the end of June 2022. Riverside, the Chinese grilled-fish chain, was first an investment and later became wholly owned; Minor helped it expand into markets such as Singapore. Riverside had 146 stores by the end of June 2022. Thai Express had 91 stores, Benihana had 17 stores, and Korean fried-chicken brand Bonchon had 106 stores.
Minor also participated in BreadTalk Group’s privatization. BreadTalk was privatized in June 2020 and delisted from the Singapore Exchange. Minor International held 25%. BreadTalk Group’s operating brands included BreadTalk, Toast Box, Food Republic, and Din Tai Fung. At the time of delisting, BreadTalk Group operated more than 1,000 stores. It posted a full-year 2019 net loss of SGD 5.2 million, compared with net profit of SGD 15.2 million in 2018.
Minor International founder William Ellwood Heinecke was born in 1949 in a naval hospital in Virginia, United States. He later gave up U.S. nationality and became a Thai citizen. His father was a naval officer and later a diplomat stationed in Asia; his mother was a women’s editor at Army Times and accompanied Marilyn Monroe across Korea during the Korean War.
Heinecke moved to Thailand with his family at age 14. At 18, he founded his first business with USD 1,200: USD 1,000 went to registration fees, and the rest bought plastic buckets, mops, and several minutes of radio advertising. The company was an office-cleaning business. By 21, he had become a millionaire and later founded Minor Holdings.
In 1980, he introduced pizza to Asian markets. At the time, some experts reportedly believed Asian consumers would not embrace Western food. He localized the pizza with regional ingredients and built a strong pizza business. He began by operating Pizza Hut franchise stores soon after Pizza Hut had been acquired by PepsiCo; the franchise fee was USD 5,000.
A dispute later arose when Pizza Hut tried to restrict his other restaurant efforts. Heinecke then created The Pizza Company. Through operating franchise-brand stores, Minor became the Thailand representative for well-known restaurant chains including Sizzler, Burger King, Dairy Queen, and Swensen's.
Heinecke also had missteps. In 1990, he was the owner of Beijing’s first Pizza Hut in Dongzhimen, having paid USD 50,000 for the restaurant’s franchise rights. The article says the timing proved too early.
From 1980 to 2000, Minor Food’s growth path was built around representing U.S. restaurant brands. After the Pizza Hut dispute, it created its own pizza chain.
After 2000, Minor increasingly used self-developed brands and capital-market leverage to invest in and acquire restaurant chains, with activity concentrated in China, Australia, the United Kingdom, and later Japan and South Korea.
Based in Thailand, Minor Food used franchising, investment, and M&A to build a restaurant-chain business with full-system sales close to RMB 8 billion in 2021. Minor International’s broader business includes hotels, restaurants, and lifestyle retail; hotels contributed more than 70% of revenue, while restaurants contributed more than 20%.
Minor International’s 2021 annual report divided the Thai foodservice market into four segments: coffee/bars, full-service restaurants, limited-service restaurants such as fast food, and street-side small shops. The overall market size in 2021 was RMB 154.8 billion. Street-side small shops were the largest segment at 34%, followed by coffee/bars at 25% and limited-service restaurants at 21%. Minor Food’s market share was only 2.6%, showing how fragmented the market remained.
Minor Food’s core market strategy was listed as:
FoodBud also previously profiled Jollibee, the Philippine foodservice giant. Its pattern was similar in some respects: focus on the home market, build self-developed core brands, operate agency brands, and use investment and acquisitions for overseas expansion.
Note: all investment, ownership, IPO/delisting, market-size, strategy, and forward-looking figures above are historical as reported in or before August 2022.