Retail Food Group EBITDA Drops 31% as Network Trims 29 Stores

Retail Food Group posted a 31.4 per cent drop in underlying EBITDA to $20.3 million for FY26 as weak consumer spending dragged down domestic sales.

Domestic network sales across its franchise brands dropped 3.1 per cent to $489.5 million, while same-store sales slipped 0.7 per cent over the twelve-month period.

The company, which owns Gloria Jean’s, Donut King, Crust, Brumby’s and Beefy’s, closed 35 underperforming stores and opened six new locations during the financial year. That left the group with a net reduction of 29 outlets across Australia as management trimmed non-core real estate.

Rolling Out Firehouse Subs

To reverse the sales slide, the franchisor is leaning into regional expansion and imported quick-service formats. It launched the US sandwich chain Firehouse Subs in Australia during the year, opening the debut site at Mt Gravatt in Queensland. The location produced the highest opening-day sales of any international Firehouse Subs restaurant to date, the company said.

Retail Food Group plans to have four Firehouse Subs locations trading by December. Management aims to expand that footprint to 15 stores by the end of next year.

Cost Targets and Franchise Margins

Multi-brand franchise operators across Asia-Pacific face squeezed household discretionary budgets and rising labor costs, pushing holding groups to prune marginal mall sites in favor of higher-volume fast-food models. The group spent recent years re-engineering legacy bakery and coffee networks to stabilize store-level profitability following earlier portfolio contractions.

Executive chairman Peter George said trading conditions remained difficult throughout FY26, with macroeconomic pressures hitting the second half. The company is now pursuing between $5 million and $7 million in cost savings in FY27, with capital focused on franchise partner economics, cash generation and the planned December store openings.