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As Jinnie drove home around the M25, she reflected on a fabulous last two weeks and showing the Bakers and the twins some of the best of the UK. As she drove, she wondered if she should have taken them to a traditional seaside resort, as she had originally thought about but couldn’t squeeze in. Maybe if they come again, they could have a few days at the Ennios Bournemouth; the children would love the beach.
Jinnie pulled up on the drive and saw the curtain twitch. That told her that Larry would be waiting for her as soon as she opened the front door, and of course he was there, rubbing himself around her legs. Jinnie called out, “Hello, where is everyone.” Willie called back, “We are in the kitchen.” Jinnie and Larry headed through to the kitchen, where the twins, with Izzy’s help, were busy making jam tarts. The twins were wearing aprons but were covered in flour, which made Jinnie burst out laughing.
Millie said, “We are making jam tarts with the left-over pastry from the meat pie that Izzy has made.” Jinnie said, “I was going to order a takeaway meal for dinner tonight and give everyone a rest now our visitors have gone home.” “Well, the pie is in the oven, but I could freeze it and we could have it later, maybe Monday,” replied Izzy. “What sort of meat pie is it?” asked Jinnie. “Minced beef and fried onions,” said Willie, “loads and loads of onions.” “My favourite,” replied Jinnie. “Can we have the jam tarts with whipped cream for afters?” asked Willie. “If that’s OK with Izzy,” replied Jinnie.
Jinnie decided that she should spend a few minutes checking how the business was going. Everyone knew she was on holiday, and Ro had been looking after her DKL and SuperBurger stuff, and as she had not been in touch, she assumed everything there was OK. Janet, Alberto’s PA, had been doing a similar job at TT SuperBurger HQ, and she was certain Sir Nigel would have popped in and told her if there was a problem. Last weekend had been the big barbecue at Belinda and Brian’s, and she had a quick word with Brian about the purchase of the two hotels in the West Indies, while everyone else had explored the gardens and the woods.
Brian had been able to check the books remotely over the internet and was quite happy they were in good order. He reported that the party who had visited the hotels reported that they were in good decorative order, appeared to be well run, but as expected the restaurants were a tad expensive and could be improved. Overall, everyone thought the price they had agreed was reasonable and they weren’t overpaying, especially as the future bookings were strong.
Jinnie headed to her garden office, as usual accompanied by Larry, and logged into the TT SuperBurger network. Thirty minutes later, she was quite happy everything was in order financially. She glanced at her watch and decided it was too near lunch to start looking at the pile of emails in her inbox, so she thought she might dig a bit deeper into one or two of the numbers on SAP to see exactly how well some of the newer outlets were doing. The first dark kitchen in Jamaica was doing well, and she was particularly pleased about the large number of sales they were clocking up for Aunty JoJo’s. The plan to open Aunty JoJo’s branches across Jamaica was going well, but was it time to start thinking about where to go next?
Jinnie had always planned to make Aunty JoJo’s a huge chain, but had so far been mainly concentrating on the Caribbean, and the British Isles had recently taken a tentative step into Slovenia with a few branches. It seemed to be working, and Brooke, as Business Development Director for the group, was actively investigating expansion, particularly in the Caribbean. But Jinnie realised that they were running out of the ‘British’ Caribbean islands to expand into. She decided she needed a chat with Brooke. Should they look to expand into other free European nations, or was it time to look further afield at other Commonwealth nations like Australia and New Zealand? Jinnie decided to phone for a discussion with Brooke on Monday.
After a quick lunch of fried egg and chips, which the twins adored, Jinnie and Larry headed back to the garden office. She wanted to see if there was anything from Monica on the embryonic catering business. Larry settled into his cat basket, and Jinnie searched her emails for anything from Monica. The overall project was still on a restricted circulation list, as Jinnie still didn’t want to tip off the incumbent contractor at the Kensington Oval that they had competition. Jinnie found an email from Monica that was several days old and marked ‘Confidential Bearcat Eyes Only’, which had clearly not been opened by Janet.
Just as Jinnie hoped, it was an update on Bearcat (Caribbean), but it was written in rather cryptic form, not actually mentioning companies by name. Jinnie gathered the hospital contract had been even signed, and a new subsidiary, Bearcat Catering (Barbados), was due to take over the next weekend. It was all sorted out: initial menus in place, payment systems sorted, supply contracts in place, and employees ready to move over. Monica added that, as far as she could tell, it was going to be quite a profitable venture. The report then said that the other job she knew about looked surprisingly promising. Monica revealed that the bid had gone in under the Bearcat Catering (Barbados) name because that way they could legitimately say they already had a catering contract on the island.
Monica added that the tender said that Bearcat Catering (Barbados) was a subsidiary of Bearcat (Caribbean), which itself was a subsidiary of TT SuperBurger (Fastfood), who owned numerous businesses on the island. Monica continued, saying she and Trevor had already been to a preliminary meeting with the ‘owner’, which Jinnie knew was the Pickwick Cricket Club, the owners of the stadium. She explained that the ‘owner’ seemed to have been investigating if the bid was genuine and did Bearcat have the resources to service a contract before properly evaluating the bid. The four people on the panel evaluating them had not seemed to have heard of the TT SuperBurger (Group) Ltd. But when Monica had told them that the group owns Aunty JoJo’s and the Continental restaurant, they sat up.
Then Trevor had talked about DKL and Keith’s Refurbishments, who had a growing reputation on the island. The panel had asked how big the TT SuperBurger (Group) was. Monica had told them that they now operate close to 200 Aunty JoJo’s in the Caribbean, UK, Canada and Slovenia, 150 Artisan Sandwich Shops, 10 Sybaritic Restaurants, four TT Continental Restaurants in the Caribbean and Canada, nearly 1,000 SuperBurger outlets in the UK, 40 Trattoria Trevi branches in the UK and Ireland, three Ennios Luxury Hotels with three more in the pipeline, two of which were to be in the Caribbean, and at least 40 DKL outlets, but she wasn’t sure of exactly how many because it was a different division.
One of the panel had asked “Is the group profitable”, and Trevor had told them “Yes, very profitable, but the company likes to reinvest most of its profits in growing the business. It pays much better than average wages and has profit-sharing schemes. We pride ourselves in never having had an industrial dispute. I have a copy of last year’s accounts for you, but please note that you won’t find Bearcat (Caribbean) in them, as it has been set up since that set of accounts was published”. They had been thanked by the panel, who assured them that their tender would be evaluated. Monica finished the message by saying that she had a friend who was close to the Cricket Club board, was of the opinion that if the bid wasn’t close to the win, they would never have been called in to dig into Bearcat credibility. Jinnie agreed with that.
***
On Monday morning, Izzy was dropping the twins back at school after the break, and Jinnie went into the Potters Bar HQ quite early. As usual, Janet was already in the office and was quickly in with a mug of coffee. Jinnie settled down at her desk and had a look at the weekend’s trading on SAP and found that everything was satisfactory. She was just about to phone Brooke when Brian arrived in the office and strolled into her office. “Nice to see you back,” said Brian.
“I guess you want to know how the two new hotels and the vineyard are going,” Brian continued. “Well, the hotels are as good as ours, the price is agreed, Keith has a schedule of work which is very small and mainly consists of altering signage. Trevor and Patricia will be signing the contract on the company’s behalf on Thursday in Bridgetown, and we take over next Monday. Keith’s people will be in on Monday when they will be trading as the Ennios St James Bay and the Ennios Marigot Bay. Nigel has sent someone out to sort out the computer systems, and he says as of Monday they will be on SAP.”
“Rick’s people have organised all the new stuff like uniforms, printed stuff for the rooms, bills, coffee shop menu, you name it. I think it is all in hand. Trevor has had the manager and chef from the Continental sorting out the restaurants, and he says he has already had some catering staff over to the Continental to see how a ‘proper’ restaurant works.” “It sounds like everything is in hand,” said Jinnie. “I think it is,” replied Brian, “and what is nice is that I have not had to get involved, our local directors and Rick have really come up trumps on this project. Moving on, the Ennios Heathrow is progressing well. Belinda has got a crew in there working on the modernisation and refurbishment. I understand she has nearly finished the first wing, which is nearly all bedrooms.”
Brian continued, “We were talking over breakfast this morning and she is happy; she has swapped her people about, and Richard is now running the job. She only puts him on the trickiest jobs. She says the next phase is the most difficult, as it will include chunks of the restaurant and reception, as well as more bedrooms. She tells me they are ahead of programme and on cost.” “When you see her next,” said Jinnie, “ask her when she is next on site, I want to see how we are doing.” “OK,” replied Brian, “we are having a quiet evening in tonight. Finally, the vineyard, it is a bit more complicated than I expected. It is quite a big place, and not only does it make and bottle wine from its own grapes, but it presses grapes for several local growers as well and bottles wine for them as well.”
“Really,” said Jinnie, “what do they do with the wine they produce for others.” “Some growers take it back and market it themselves,” said Brian, “but they market most of it for the others. Some is high quality and goes through wholesalers, but they also produce huge amounts of table wine, which is mainly sold in France, but some makes its way here in bulk and is sold in supermarkets as the cheapest wines to be drunk young.” “Interesting,” said Jinnie, “do they make money, and could we afford to buy the business?”
“The answer to both questions is yes,” said Brian. “My investigation shows they make money, not as much as they could be with a bit of investment, and surprisingly they are valued quite lowly. I think we could pick up the whole business for a couple of million pounds. But it is running it that I think would be the problem. We would need to take it over as a going concern, including the skilled winemakers, and that might add a premium. Now I have been costing the whole thing, and I think we could make it work, especially when we add in what we can make on selling the Merlot. But if we were to put a bit of investment in, some new wine presses, a faster bottling line, we take on more grapes from local vineyards. We could even buy more vineyard.” “OK,” said Jinnie, “should we put it to the board?” “Definitely,” replied Brian. “They will want to see a short to medium-term return on the investment and I can easily show we can do that.”
Jinnie checked her watch, and seeing it was just gone 10, she decided it was time to phone Brooke, but as she started to pick up the phone, she remembered that Brooke had a meet with Simon from Heathrow that morning. So, she put the phone back in its holder and started drafting her pitch to the board for going into the winemaking business. She had her thoughts very nearly sorted out when Janet stuck her head around the office door and asked if she was ordering lunch in the Directors’ Dining-room or would she like her to bring back something from the Sandwich Bar. Jinnie remembered they had a mince and fried onion pie for dinner, so she asked Janet to bring her back a large egg mayo and sliced tomato bap and a packet of plain crisps.
Jinnie popped most of the crisps into the bap and crunched her way through her lunch and washed it down with yet another mug of coffee whilst catching up with the latest news on the Russo-German war. There had been air battles over the front lines with reports of lots of planes from both sides being shot down and still no one was seeming to be winning. Jinnie hated the Germans and was indifferent about the Russians. But she knew that at least they were only trying to get their own land back, and she knew how that felt. Maybe she was a bit on the side of the Russians.
After lunch, Jinnie phoned Brooke, who answered almost immediately, but was obviously driving. “Hi,” said Brooke, “I guess you want to know how my meeting with Simon went.” “I’d love to know,” replied Jinnie, “but I really wanted to chat about something else. I take it you are on the motorway.” “That’s right,” said Brooke. “I’m on the M23 just coming up to the Crawley junction, so I’m very nearly at the Divisional Office in Crawley. If it’s going to be a long chat, can I call you back in about 10 minutes, then I can concentrate on what you want to discuss.” “OK,” replied Jinnie, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Jinnie saw Brian walking past her office and called him in, saying “I’m waiting for a return call from Brooke. I want to throw an idea at her, I would appreciate it if you could sit in and give me your thoughts on the cost implications.” “Alright,” said Brian, closing the office door and sitting down. He had hardly done so when Jinnie’s mobile rang, and leaving it in the cradle, she used her computer to answer it and switch it to speaker mode. “Thanks for ringing back,” said Jinnie. “Brian is with me, and you are on speaker. Now before I talk about why I phoned you; how did you get on with Simon?” “Really well,” replied Brooke. “The outlet is ours and I’ll hand it over to Estates as soon as we finish this call.”
“Excellent,” replied Jinnie. “Let’s hope that’s our toe in the door at Heathrow. Now I wanted to talk about the future of Aunty JoJo’s. As Development Director, I value your input. We have pretty much flooded the English-speaking Caribbean market. I know there are a few places we could try like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas, but none are very big markets. We need to make a strategic decision, are we to try the likes of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, or maybe the Dominican Republic. Or do we try somewhere American like Puerto Rico.” “Give me a second to consult my notes,” said Brooke. After a moment, she said “Well, the ABC islands aren’t going to make our fortune. I have already looked at them, and if we go by KFC branches, Aruba has one, Bonaire has six, and Curaçao has five. Now Puerto Rico is a better bet, there are 80-odd branches according to my notes, but about half are also drive-ins, and as you know we haven’t gone down that route yet. The Dominican Republic is a better bet according to my notes, they have about 40 KFC branches and no drive-ins. But they are Spanish-speaking, so we would have a lot of work to do on menus and signage.”
“That’s interesting,” said Jinnie, “so what do you think we should be doing?” “Well, if we are to grow into a true international brand, messing about with countries that can only sustain half a dozen branches is going to get us there. Personally, I would advertise for franchisees in the ABC islands; that is cheap for us. I would ignore Puerto Rico until we have developed a drive-in model and software. I would like to try it out in the U.K. first. I think we should hit Dom Rep but there is the language problem. But once we have Spanish menus and signage sorted, we can expand into the Spanish-speaking world.”
“OK,” said Jinnie, “that’s the short term sorted, but the rate we are expanding we could do that in six months. But where do we go after that?” “Well,” said Brooke, “I have been looking at the KFC world market; they have over 30,000 outlets in nearly 150 countries. Their biggest market by far is China with over 10,000 branches, but I don’t think we are anywhere near ready to take them on there. Next come the US with about 4,500, then it’s India, Japan and the U.K. with around 1,000 and South Africa and Australia with around 900. Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia have about 800 branches while Canada has 650. There are numerous countries with 100 to 250 branches.”
Brooke continued, “I agree, I don’t think China, Thailand or Japan are easy territories to break into and I would leave them until we are much bigger. My strategy would be to mop up those Caribbean islands and do exactly what we are doing right now, go hard at the British, Irish and Canadian markets. By my reckoning that could get us to around 2,000 outlets. Then I would like to have a bash at one of the big English-speaking areas, say Australia or the Philippines.”
“Brian,” Jinnie said, “how are we financially placed to follow a plan like that, developing in a serial fashion like we are doing now?” Brian thought for a moment, then replied, “I think it wouldn’t be a problem in the slightest. It is very much within our capabilities. Most of our current purchases are of profitable businesses and will be generating cash almost immediately. The rollout of Aunty JoJo’s in Canada is switching rapidly to a franchise operation which costs us very little to set up and quickly brings in a rich return on investment. The idea of seeding a new area with a couple of owned branches seems to work very well in recruiting franchises.”
“What if we were to look to run a bigger expansion programme in parallel with Brooke’s plan,” asked Jinnie, “say we looked at a new 300-outlet English-speaking region.” “Off the top of my head,” said Brian, “so long as we go for a mainly franchised operation, I’m pretty sure it is well within our capabilities. But we would have to put money aside to set up the infrastructure, like we are doing in Canada. We were lucky in Canada we have been able to build on an existing management structure with the Bakers, but I doubt we would be so lucky in Australia, South Africa or the Philippines.”
“I wasn’t thinking of any of those countries,” said Jinnie, “I was thinking of tackling somewhere closer to one of our existing regions where we have management in place. OK, we would have to put a supply chain in place. But that shouldn’t add too much to the start-up costs.” “Where are you thinking about?” asked a puzzled Brooke. “Florida,” answered Jinnie, “it also has the advantage it has one of the highest concentrations of Caribbean people in the States.” “But I thought you didn’t want to tackle the United States yet,” said Brooke. “I don’t want to tackle the whole of the States,” said Jinnie, “only one state, Florida. It’s like opening in England; we can jump to France or Ireland (which we have already done). From Florida we can jump to Georgia and Alabama and stretch the supply lines.”
“How deeply have you looked into this?” asked Brian. “I must admit, not very deeply,” answered Jinnie, “but that is the point of discussing it here. I wanted to find out if what I was thinking about was remotely possible or was it a ludicrous idea. Well, it seems it could be possible, so before we decide to go down that path I want to see a costed report with options that we can fully discuss at board level. Of course, if the report says it is stupid or it is out of reach financially or that opening in, say, Timbuktu is a better option then we need to know. Do you think you two can come up with such a report? It will probably mean a visit to Florida. Oh, and I might be trying to teach my mother to suck eggs but I understand the greatest concentrations of Caribbean people are in Tampa and the Miami-Dade area so Aunty JoJo’s opening there might be its best start in life.”
***
When Jinnie got home, there was a delicious smell the moment she entered the front door. As Larry rubbed himself around her legs, she said out loud, “I wonder what smells so good,” and a vision of a steaming pie appeared in her mind. She said, “Thank you, Larry, I think I am going to enjoy dinner this evening.” In the kitchen, the twins were busy helping Izzy lay the kitchen table. Now they were getting a bit older, they were beginning to have little jobs around the house: laying the table, stacking the dishwasher, making sure there was always fresh water in Larry’s bowl, and putting their dirty clothes in the Ali Baba washing basket in the bathroom. They were only little things, but Jinnie appreciated that Izzy was teaching them the right way to do things a little at a time, and they became second nature.
She stood in the doorway, watching with pride as they fussed about getting knives, forks and spoons in the right places and placing the people’s napkins in the places they inevitably sat. Everyone had a different colour ring, and they knew which was whose and placed them to the left of everyone’s place setting. Millie suddenly realised her mother was watching them and said, “Mummy, how long have you been watching us?” “Just long enough to know that you have gone from being a hindrance to some help for Izzy,” replied Jinnie. “What is a ‘hindrance’?” asked Willie.
As soon as Paolo got home, they got stuck into the minced beef and fried onion pie, and it was just as tasty as it smelled. As Jinnie was savouring it, she thought how lucky they were that Izzy was such a good cook; she made it look so simple to produce good, tasty food. She remembered when she and Simone had first shared, and Simone had signed up for the cookery club. She had started off saying she was a useless cook but had quickly become very good. Jinnie’s mind wandered; it had been some time since she had seen Simone, Jan and little Juliette. Then she realised that Juliette was nearly three years older than the twins and wouldn’t be so little now. It suddenly struck her perhaps she should invite them to stay at the house in Barbados for a couple of weeks in August when they were there. Everyone in France went on holiday in August.
Jinnie was jolted back to reality by Paolo saying, “A penny for your thoughts,” which made her laugh. It seemed so odd and Italian using such a British expression. “It was a complicated thought process that I won’t go into now, but I was thinking if we should invite Jan and Simone to the house in Barbados this summer.” “Now that’s what I’d call a good idea,” said Paolo, “it’s ages since we saw them. And what with your parents going on a Mediterranean cruise this summer, and not coming out, there will be plenty of space for them.”
© WorthingGooner 2025