Article

The new face of fast casual?

Fuzion Food Group looks to alter the restaurant landscape.

May 1, 2007 by Valerie Killifer — senior editor, NetWorld Alliance

When Blaze Okerlund began his career in the restaurant industry he was waiting tables and bartending to support himself during college. He later went to work at Orion Food Systems (now Stuff Foods) and spent nearly 18 years helping to grow the company from 50 locations to more than 2,200 worldwide.

Okerlund is now the president of Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Fuzion Food Group, with quick-serve and fast casual concepts that include Two-Fisted Feedery, Heroes, Pyramid Pizza, J.J. Maverick's Brightday Cafe and Java Blues. Each concept comes with a fully-developed menu, operational system and strategic marketing plan. Fuzion also will work with operators to re-brand an existing foodservice operation, providing a restaurant review, and hiring, training, operational and marketing support.

Okerlund said Fuzion is willing to go where most foodservice operations will not: bars and amusement parks; hotels and resorts; hospitals and food courts; colleges and universities; and convenience stores.

"In those kinds of channels, the primary focus is not foodservice, but they have to have it," Okerlund said.

Fuzion's executive vice president, technical services and executive chef, Andy Revella, said many of the channels have had financial success running foodservice operations.But, Fuzion offers a plan that takes operational responsibilities one step further: a full operational and developmental support system with multi-branded concepts, and contract-management and consulting services, including food product design.

"But we give them an operations system that's very easy to operate without having to put somebody on the payroll," he said. "They don't have the expertise to pull the program off day-to-day. Instead of hiring if a person, they hire a company."


An interior shot at Fuzion Food group's J.J. Maverick's fast-casual concept.

Menu and product development

Revella has been responsible for menu development and operations at restaurants such as Rain Forest Café, Bennigan's, Steak & Ale and B.B. King's, and consulted on projects for Ruth's Chris Steak House, Jimmy Dean and Sara Lee among others. He also worked on each of the Fuzion Food Group's concepts, both in menu and operational development capacities.

Revella said Fuzion's goal was to offer healthful food items at each of the company's concepts with intense flavors and the correct amount of moisture.

"You can get fancy and do this and that," he said. "But you have to have food customers want to buy. You don't have to give up taste for health, but you have to, at the same time, work on the moisture of the food."

The other company goal is to offer healthful food using superior technology that also is easy to operate and environmentaly safe.

The company partnered with Turbo Chef for the design of a proprietary oven that cuts down on utility costs while maintaining the correct moisture levels in food products. Revella said the system is so easy to use it "can be operated by anyone from the front desk to the maids."

The system has been approved in 50 states along with a chemical cleaning system that requires only salt and water. The solution has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.

The cooking and cleaning system "comes pretty much with us," Revella said. "We believe that we sell the whole solution, not just pieces. If they just want pieces they never will achieve the results they intend. We go beyond food. Part of our program is complete supply."

Company growth

Fuzion executives recently signed area development agreements in Minneapolis, Kansas and Arizona, and have already taken their concepts to markets they never thought possible.

"We never envisioned all of the different channels we're going to be in business in," said Okerlund. "We're finding ourselves in movie theaters, water parks and amusement parks. We're taking this way beyond what we envisioned."

Revella said the company and its concepts have been popular with independent operators, mostly with one or maybe two locations.

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"We come in giving field support as if it's a national chain, but it's being delivered at a local level," he said.

And while Okerlund said he doesn't know if Fuzion will ever be considered a national operation, they are willing to go where most other chains won't.

"We're not the kind of guys that go on the corner and Main," Okerlund said. "But where we're going to beat them is operational support because we require developers to visit their locations every 30 days.

He touts the company's flexible approach — whether recipe development or operational support — as their key to expansion.

"We're going to go in these (targeted) locations with a lot of flexibility in mind. We're not so rigid and that's very lucrative to poeple," he said.