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The company "Mare Altum" owned by Denis Poliæ and Andrija Èolak
holds the fastest-growing franchise "Surf'n'fries"
whose yearly income in over 40 localities in Croatia
and in foreign countries equals to 30 million kunas.
The renowned Rijeka's duo fried their first fries
during the carnival in 2009. Ever since they continued to improve
the Belgian and French recipes.
Their success is best shown by the fact about over 2,5 million
servings of fries made out of 500 tons of potato per year
that is fried in "Surf'n'fries" all over Croatia and beyond,
employing 100 workers.
Compared to the first year, the sales have grown by 685 percent.
The business starting investment was around 150 000 euros.
In 2009. we opened the first facility in Rijeka, across
the orthodox church. It rapidly became a major success.
The same year, because of the great interest of the people,
we started a franchise.
Why the title "Surf'n'fries"? It came to us spontaneously.
It combined our hobby and the work we do.
My partner and me are into surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing.
And fries are what we do. Combining those two,
we came up with "Surf'n'fries", as a quite interesting title.
The mother of fast food is, of course, the USA.
We all look up to the western trends, and you can't get more
western than the USA.
We had an idea about how this business should be like,
so we took an airplane to the USA and spent a month there.
We worked on improving the concept of existing fast-food
companies in Croatia. I believe we managed to do that in our facilities,
along with starting a whole new trend of in Croatia. A lot of new
fast-food restaurants were opened with higher quality standards,
higher quality ingredients and better service.
That is very good.
We wanted to make it retro-style. Fifties, sixties, California-style.
Concerning the title "Surf'n'fries", we wanted to follow
the creative notion, and above all achieve a great functionality.
All the facilities across Croatia are franchised.
The only facility we own is the one in Rijeka.
Why the franchise? We didn't expect this kind of growth,
and the original idea wasn't to franchise the whole business.
It just happened. We opened the facility, people rushed in,
it became a hit, and we had a lot of offers of cooperation.
In Croatia there are around 37, 40 franchised facilities, it varies.
We had a lot of franchising offers in Croatia. We are a tourist country,
we get a lot of tourists here, especially Slovene tourists.
The first step in international franchising was Slovenia.
We had a lot of tourists, a lot of inquiries. One inquiry was
quite interesting, it came from an experienced man,
so we opened a first restaurant in Slovenia.
We have facilities in Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
and Turkey. In Turkey we have opened our own facility,
it's not franchised, we own a partner company in Turkey.
In Istanbul, "Surf'n'Fries" is located in Bešiktaš,
in downtown area, so-called èaršija.
We chose Bešiktaš because of the number of people there,
particularly students, young people,
also most of the trends originate from Bešiktaš,
so we wanted to be in the center of activities.
Our first customers were, of course, school students,
and then all others who came to check us out.
The company's yearly income is around 100 thousand kunas,
most of the income is invested back in improvement of business.
We could say that the wrapping of our fries is what made us famous.
It is completely new on the market.
Our intention was to let people dip the fries individually
with the preferred amount of sauce instead of the usual dressing.
It became a success, we patented the design,
and the wrapping is in great deal the key to our success.
The main supplier of potato for "Surf'n'Fries" is Podravka,
which also produces some of the sauces by their recipes.
The main supplier for chicken is Vindija.
The unique packaging was developed in Malaysia and Istria
by "Istra grafika" and it allows the individual dipping of fries
in two of the 20 offered sauces.
Some countries have a large fast food market, some don't,
but anywhere we open up a restaurant, people seem to like it.
We started to think beyond our current position on the market,
and we have a good opportunity in entering the chips market,
which would be the next logical business step.
In cooperation with Rijeka's PIK we are starting a project in Korzo
which is a combination of our frozen yogurt brand "Chill"
and PIK's renowned products.
We will offer frozen yogurts with various side dishes,
in addition to miscellaneous products depending
on the season. Basically, we are continuing to develop healthy
ice cream with zero calories that won't make people feel remorse.
In 2013. "Surf'n'Fries" will expand the business
to Qatar, Egypt and Germany.
They are negotiating with a foreign investment organization
about the mutual expansion to the market of India,
and there are also inquiries about franchising in USA and Australia.
The company is registered in Rijeka and it is conducted from Rijeka.
Geographically, we don't mind if the company is stationed in Rijeka
or in some other city. Maybe it would be easier to make some
new business acquaintances and develop if we were located
in Zagreb, but we don't think that it's currently neccesary
to move the company nor it will be necessary in the future.
There are loads of warnings about the harmfulness of fast food,
but that includes many more products besides fries,
and there is a large number of restaurants offering
seemingly healthy food which, in fact, isn't healthy.
We are giving people an option. You don't have to eat fries
every day, but the fact is that people enjoy fries a lot.
Some people avoid fried food for other reasons.
Everyone can enjoy fries from time to time.
Once in every few months.
I don't like fast food very much, but today I'm enjoying a treat.
I eat here once a week, I love fast food.
Once a week, the kids love it. I'm not a fan, but the kids love the fries.
Once a week. I like it because it is fast and delicious.
These fries are great!
Whenever we are in Rijeka, we bring the kids here.
It's great!
I come here because I love these fries, they're delicious.
Once every month, mostly because of the fries.
The fries are great.
We combine surfing with fries.
We eat fries a lot but we also do a lot of sports.
People should take care about themselves
and then you can eat anything because you burn all the calories
through activities.
In 2010. we produced a game for iPhone,
it puts the person behind the bar, our wallpaper being visible,
you can see the city through the open door, it's a 3D game.
The fries are jumping on the screen, as jumping out of the fryer,
and the intention is for you to hit them with sauce
and put them into the packaging.
The package is filled when you hit 10 fries
and it is being supplied to the customer.
The objective is to get as many points possible in 120 seconds.
That was our intention. The life gets faster every day,
people eat fast food because they don't have the time to sit down
and take their time to eat.
Our concept was to offer people the whole meal carriable in one hand.
With fries you can get sauces, drinks and an extra carrier
for sandwiches. All that you can carry in one hand,
leaving the other hand free. You can carry it around,
the packaging is attractive, you can talk on the phone,
everything is customized to our way of living.