You wouldn’t think George Sambonos is a multi-millionaire. He may drive a Porsche, but he spends his Fridays helping clear the tables in the rush of Friday lunchtime at his flagship store. Hence, two words describe him: ‘humble’ and ‘shrewd’.
The son of a Greek entrepreneur, Sambonos was born in Hillbrow, South Africa. His life has been filled with doses of luck and bucket-loads of hard work. It all began with his father’s business, started by his mother to pass the time. The Dairy Den was a franchise, from the US Dairy Queen, selling ice cream and fried chicken to customers in their cars. He worked at the Dairy Den from the age of 18 and would stay until the wee hours every day.
He uses words like “awful” and “horrible” to describe working for his Jekyll-and-Hyde father. Sambonos recalls days when he’d have to go outside and cry for five minutes in his determination not to quit. Another time, his father threw a bread knife at him for dropping a glass—the knife stuck into the skirting board. He remembers his father as a good businessman but an awful boss. Sambonos is the opposite with his daughter, Chantal. He considers himself strict but fair, believing that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
It was the benign side of Sambonos senior that threw tickets to America across the dining room table and gave the young man a chance to make a discovery that was to change his life. The condition of these trips was that he visit his aunt in Greece on the way back.
The overseas trips allowed him to soak up everything he could about the US restaurant business. Sambonos would spend his days walking from one outlet to another, trying out the food and taking photographs of the menus. He claims that he still does this, but is now more selective and secretive. When he takes a picture these days, he gets his wife to hold the menu, while he pretends to take a picture of her.
It was on one of these trips, in 1972, that Sambonos tasted the fried chicken which would change his life. He asked the business owner in Waco, Texas, to give him the recipe. He wore the owner down to making a deal but did not have the $5,000 asking price. The chicken shop owner took pity on Sambonos because he was young. Further negotiations brought the price down to $1,000—all the money he had for the rest of his trip.
Sambonos came back too afraid to tell his father what he’d done. He began mixing the spices under his bed and adding them to the chicken at his father’s roadhouse, from a recipe he hoped was right. Chicken sales grew. The Dairy Den went from taking in R25,000 a month to a staggering R200,000 a month in the course of a year: a fortune in those days.
It was a good three months before Sambonos came clean, if you can call it that. It was a visiting relative who asked Sambonos’s father what he’d done to the chicken and the old man said: “That little ‘bastard’ must have done something—I’ll kill him.” The secret recipe for the addictive chicken is safely in the hands of Robertsons Spices, and its chemist was made a director in the company to safeguard the company secret.
With business doing so well, thanks to Sambonos’s bold move, he thought it the right time to ask for a 5% profit share. This did not go down well with his father, who told him to either be happy with what he’s got or his cousin would be called in to replace him. So when the opportunity came up to sign the store’s lease in his name while his father was in Greece, Sambonos jumped at it. It was a move motivated purely to save the lease, but his father didn’t speak to him for three months and died three months after their reconciliation.
Rebranding was next. In 1981, Sambonos wanted to name the store ‘Golden Fried Chicken’, like the name of the company he’d just formed, but was turned down because the name was too descriptive. A despairing Sambonos had his head buried in his hands when one of his waiters suggested the name, Chicken Licken, from the children’s book, Chicken Little/Chicken Licken. The waiter received R300 for his idea.
The Chicken Licken signs went up and by 1982, Sambonos had taken over the business and was franchising into the townships. The first franchise was in Zola, Soweto. Sambonos admits to giving away the first franchises. By 1985, he began selling them for R3,000 and giving the franchisee R15,000 worth of equipment to get them started. A television commercial featuring a well-known black actor drove up sales in 1989 with the jingle “It’s good, good, good, it’s good, it’s nice.” Sambonos found out what his customers liked and used it to make money.
Setting up in the townships of South Africa during apartheid was another risky move by Sambonos and in 1984, things took a turn for the worse. The growing turmoil in Soweto meant that delivering chicken to the township was nearly impossible. Business suffered.
Sambonos has come a long way since then, with 245 outlets and franchisee payments of 12% of their turnover, up from the pre-2012 payments of 10%. These consist of 6% for royalty fees and 6% for the advertising share. The group is said to turn down five people a day. This is all testament to how much the brand has grown. There is an outlet set-up cost of at least R2.8 million ($354,670) and an initial franchise fee of R120,000 ($15,200). The flagship store in northern Johannesburg cost R5 million ($633,240) to set up, excluding the R500,000 ($63,330) for the generator. Unlike the 1980s, a lack of electricity is a concern these days.
Sambonos is still at the helm, ensuring stringent quality control. All the outlets receive their ingredients from the same licensed suppliers; use the same specs; are furnished with identical equipment; and have access to the trademarks.
This rigorous approach has led to problems when expanding in the continent. The company opened two stores in Mauritius, with a three-year royalty break. The country only had two chicken producers, one of which supplied Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC); they had no choice but to use the other. The outlets did well, but when the royalty break ended, so did Chicken Licken in Mauritius.
Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, had four outlets which were doing extremely well; one of them was a top performer in the entire group. That is, until the country ran out of foreign exchange to pay for ingredients.
Nigeria’s five outlets in Lagos closed down due to issues with the franchisee. According to Sambonos, the franchisee wanted to refranchise to others at a lower rate and loosen quality control.
Chicken Licken plans to invest in the rest of Africa, beyond their 12 stores in Botswana. Sambonos says this is provided they get the same quality chicken in those countries. The company is awaiting expansion into the continent by Rainbow Chicken, South Africa’s main chicken supplier. Sambonos feels that the key to success is to control the chicken and the advertising. In Nigeria, the cost of fuel to run generators has to be thought about as no business can rely on the electricity supply.
Sambonos says: “Nigeria’s only got 30 million chickens, that’s all. The big producer is the former president and he won’t let you import chicken, so you’re finished.”
As if going into the rest of Africa is not hard enough, Chicken Licken has had to battle the image of being a township brand in its attempt to enter wealthier malls. There is an apparent fear that the outlets will bring in the wrong element of people.
Sambonos was annoyed when O.R. Tambo International offered to slot them in the back. He believes his brand will win over the sceptics.
The company’s annual turnover is close to R1.4 billion ($177.4 million) and is powering its way towards its R2 billion ($253.5 million) target for 2014. Sambonos says that the company reaching R3 billion ($380.2 million) by 2017 will be his cue to step down from handling the suppliers and the advertising. “They can’t mess it up after that,” he chuckles.
The 2012 budget is R64 million ($8.1 million) for advertising and Sambonos oversees the ideas right down to attending the photo shoot.
The group is also a firm believer in taking care of its employees. Every three months, the best performing manager receives a R6,000 ($760) to R12,000 ($1,520) bonus and the rest of the outlet, about R600 ($75) each.
Sambonos says: “If the manager is right, then the rest of the outlet is right.”
Kind to his employees, but merciless to his competitors, Sambonos has seen his fair share of battles, or caused them, as some might say.
The first legal battle, in 1982 with KFC, was over the name. Sambonos opened up an outlet in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg, not far from a KFC. The new store took half of KFC’s business in just two weeks. The battle lines were drawn.
KFC claimed Chicken Licken’s name was too close to their ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ slogan. Sambonos says the trademark lawyers told him he could change the name or fight in court. He chose the fight, dropping off the R10,000 legal fees in a Chicken Licken plastic bag that ended up in the office fridge. Chicken Licken won both the case and the appeal. The proud Sambonos says KFC offered him R250,000 to change the name, a sum he clearly refused, adding a sly: “Harry Swartz (of KFC) said, ‘Hell or high water, I’ll see you in Bloemfontein [High Court]’.” They never made it there.
The second battle was born of Sambonos’s usual trips to the US in the early 1980s. Walking down 6th Avenue in New York, he saw a KFC banner advertising KFC’s popcorn chicken. Loving the idea, he called his lawyer to put in an application with the South African registrar. A while later, back home, he saw a KFC advert for KFC Pops in the paper and did some digging into how this was even possible.
Apparently, his paperwork was not pushed through due to clerical forgetfulness. Sambonos demanded due diligence as he had placed his application first. The matter was settled at the registrar; KFC lost again.
By the time the hotwings saga began in 1992, Sambonos was already a thorn in KFC’s side. KFC held a convention in Swaziland for its franchisees, who were served fried hotwings. A friend’s phone call prompted Sambonos to call up his lawyer and say: “Hotwings! See if we can grab the name quickly.” The lawyer found out that a company called County Fair owned the name in South Africa, but had failed to use it. Sambonos’s lawyer offered them R750 ($300 at the then exchange rate) for the name, pointing out that their ownership could easily be expunged and they’d get nothing from it. The lawyer signed a check on the spot.
Sambonos describes how he quietly went to Rainbow Chicken and asked them to supply him with his wings, even drawing a diagram as to where they should be cut. In the meantime, the creative entrepreneur would buy normal chicken wings and cut them himself. He sold them at one outlet—six ‘hotwings’ and chips for R2.95 ($1 at the then exchange rate)—and had the manager keep all the receipts just so they could use the name for the minimum required period. This paid off because KFC decided to start selling the hotwings its sister company in the US had introduced, only to be informed by Rainbow Chicken that Chicken Licken had beaten them to the order and would use the same name.
Since the name legally belonged to Chicken Licken, KFC offered Sambonos about R85,000 ($29,460 at the time) for it. “No deal,” said the man who had already paid R750.
According to Sambonos, his company sells an average of 12,000 cases of hotwings a week and is now importing XL wings to keep up with the growing demand. The original ‘six hotwings and chips’ meal now costs R21.95 ($3).
Sambonos attributes his business savvy to his constant need for something new. He still reads trade journals every week and travels as much as he can. He says that the US isn’t as secretive as the South African market. There, when a company creates something new, they test it and it becomes common knowledge.
Sambonos says: “If somebody has got something good and you’re not going to go to jail for it, use it.”
Wise words from the humble millionaire who owns the trademark “Soul” in the food category, and probably has his eye on a few more words.