The three biggest franchise brands in the world are all embroiled in disputes with their U.S. franchisees.
This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast “A Deeper Dive” features John Gordon, a restaurant consultant out of San Diego, who talks about these disputes and why they’re happening.
The three brands are McDonald’s, Subway and 7-Eleven. At McDonald’s, franchisees have been pushing back against a $70 million technology fee and could take legal action to stop it.
At Subway, the brand is closing 1,000 restaurants a year, operators expect others to walk away and now the company wants to increase their royalty payment to 10% from 8%—already high when compared with other sandwich brands.
7-Eleven, the giant convenience store chain getting increasingly into the food business, has issues of its own—most recently with franchisees pushing hard to be able to close overnight because they can’t find enough workers.
Gordon discusses each of these disputes and whether they have anything in common.
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