Sarah Stowe
Welcome Matt, good to have you with us today. You have senior leadership experience in retail brands, category sales and strategic planning. What is it you look for in a role and in a business?

Matt Marshall
Thanks Sarah, nice to be with you. Yeah, it’s funny, I’ve always looked for really challenging roles and something that’s got a lot of potential to make changes and grow. I’ve always loved working with brands and people, diverse teams, anything that’s got the ability to get your hands in and make a difference. I got some advice really early in my career about taking on things that are more challenging is probably more rewarding. And I’ve always found that really exciting and I’ve always tried to do that.

And so managing change is perhaps the most exciting, but that is probably the most challenging aspect of any role that I’ve done.

Sarah
And so what were your career goals when you actually started out?

Matt
When I started out, probably didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was never one of those people that was driven by necessarily a title or something really specific in mind. I was quite curious. I like to travel. I went and played cricket in the UK for a while and really just fell into some, some sales type roles in some big, know, great organizations. And that led from one thing to another. And by the time I started to sort of frame up what I wanted to do and what my career goals started to look like. I’ve sort of found myself in these businesses where I was around people and strategic business planning and that’s, I really did fall into that sort of line. And by the time I realized that that was the right, I was in the right place. I was in the right sort of fast moving consumer goods and retail businesses. I just tried to get as much experience broadly as I could before getting to carried away with what role or what career path I was following. So.

I don’t know how normal that is for people, but it was sort how I fell into it, but then got quite specific as I progressed.

Sarah
And so what, I mean, obviously quite varied then, from cricket to business, what influenced you to, what was it that kind of shaped you or funneled you into the final choice?

Matt
Um, it’s a tricky question for me to answer because when I started, I think at one point I wanted to be an architect. Uh, at another point I wanted to a physiotherapist. Um, I ended up doing a business degree with an international business and marketing degree, but I also did a science degree. Um, and at one point that sort of physio and sport angle was an angle I was going down. Um, but after I traveled and played a bit of sport and then found myself in some of these commercial roles.

I really found I loved the fast pace kind of branded environments where you could see something tangible. And I liked being able to influence a business outcome that you could see and build it on scale. And so that kind of gave me a real thrill. that’s, I guess, experience influenced my choice of creating more than anything. And it was probably just because of the way I was interacting with people and the brands that I was involved with.

Sarah
So you’ve worked for some big brands, Schweppes and the Sanofi stable of healthcare products, includes Nature’s Own. I’m wondering what were the big challenges in those roles in particular?

Matt
I mean, I started in the Cadbury business, which was a really big brand. those, challenges there were very different actually, once I moved into brands that were more challenger brands and I found myself enjoying sort of non-market leader brands more than the really big brands. ⁓ Because those challenges were really all about the quality of the work and the quality of execution. Sometimes I think when you’ve got big brands, big trusted brands, you can get sort of absorbed in a bit of the laziness of just relying on how good that brand is. And so I enjoy the challenge of ⁓ finding new ways to go after market leaders and find little insights that ⁓ unlocked opportunity.

And so those challenges really related to the people and building an environment for success that was different. And so going after things in a different way. ⁓ Often that would mean sharper pitches if it was a sales role or it was a really niche customer insight that you could really explode. And that typically that challenge was around building the right team and the capability and the empowerment for people to really have a go and make a difference. So that was always, I think, common challenge, no matter what the brand was, but it was also the most enjoyable part of the job and what it was doing. ⁓

Sarah
And what would be the skill there that you would identify across all of those that enables you to spot those opportunities and spot the way forward?

Matt
I think as a leader of those teams, was different from being a participant in those teams. think when you’re in those teams, it was about being really clear on ⁓ an insight or a customer insight that would unlock an opportunity. By the time I got to kind of leadership roles, I think the skill there for me was about ⁓ being able to listen around diverse opinions or opportunities, but bringing that skill together in a way that made the whole more effective.

And so I was always sort of in these positions where I was working with great people and the individual ⁓ actions of individuals maybe didn’t always get you the outcome when you were really trying to find a market leader. ⁓ But actually getting people together and unlocking the joint insights into a plan and having people kind of come together and work together was probably a skill that I am I worked really hard at as I managed different teams. I found myself managing people that were more skilled than I was in their area of expertise.

My skill was very different in being able to bring people together across those disciplines to unlock more. And that was probably the thing that helped my career more than anything I think.

Sarah
You spent just nine months as managing director at the retail food group brand Brumby’s back in 2015 to 16. Why did you leave and what persuaded you then to come back to the retail food group five years ago?

Matt
Yeah, five years ago I was I was living in Melbourne for 11 years and working in some of the businesses you’ve mentioned. And when I moved back to I grew up in Queensland and I moved back to Queensland after having a couple of kids and my wife and I came back. It was sort of the right time with family around and I joined retail food group, joined the Brumbies business and found that there was this huge opportunity in the same way I was talking about these challenger brands and businesses where there was opportunity around brand evolution, really getting to know the customer, working with franchise partners and unlocking this opportunity. Unfortunately, I didn’t last long. was there in nine months. I didn’t plan on leaving, but I felt at the time that it wasn’t the right business for me. And I look back on it and there were some wonderful people and some great brands, but I didn’t feel like I could make a difference just in the way the business was set up at the time. And when I left, I left and I had a good opportunity closer to home.

pharmaceutical business. ⁓ But I came back after Peter George, who’s our chairman now, tapped me on the shoulder and had a coffee with me and spoke to me about the opportunity to come back. I really wasn’t interested, if I’m honest, I didn’t think it was the right business for me. And as I spoke to him and found out what he was doing around reshaping the board, reshaping the business and really putting the customer and the franchise partner back at the heart of what would unlock a new pathway for retail food group who, you by the way, obviously we went through all their drama and it was a really tough time. I went back to those values I guess that I spoke to before and what sort of role excited me in it and with the conditions changing around where retail food group was going it actually I guess just sparked a little bit of interest in me to think you know the reasons I left maybe aren’t there anymore so what a great opportunity to go back and take on something that I considered potentially the most challenging retail job in the country for many reasons, at the time that wasn’t this job but you know one thing’s led to another and I’ve been back there five years so it’s been a really good choice.

Sarah
And it’s taken a few years for RFG to claw its way back from a low point, both financially and reputationally. And you mentioned Peter George has done the job there as the turnaround king. But how hard was that turnaround? Because on the one hand, there’s organisational change for the team, but you’ve got the extra challenge of bringing franchisees onside. And there were a lot of issues around all of those things. yeah, I’m interested in how hard it was and how it was achieved.

Matt
Well, you had COVID in the middle of that too. And that made it really hard. I joined the day International Borders shut and we sort of all the leadership team went all in on a 20 % pay cut day one. I’m sort of wondering what they would have done. But look, it’s been really hard. It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever been a part of. And it’s gone through various phases. You you did have a lot of, you very public media and legal issues, had financial concerns. ⁓ And I guess what I was really fortunate with is Peter was really focused on that turnaround aspect of it in terms of re-engaging the capital markets, fixing our balance sheet, putting the legal issues behind us. And I was at the time really focused on working with franchisees and making sure we got through COVID. And as we got through all of that,

One thing sort of led to another and the timing of stepping into the CEO role was as that transition point of the sort of the more of the serious issues were put behind us in terms of RFG’s financial and reputational position. But that was really just the start then of dealing with the issues on behalf of the franchisees. And I don’t think that ever stops. But we were coming from so far back that that became the biggest challenge in terms of how we were going to kind of build through a growth plan.

Excuse me off the back of all that history. So, you know, how did that go? How hard was it? was really hard and it’s still it’s still really hard because trust is not something you can ask people for. You have to earn that. And we’ve spent a lot of time rebuilding the capability of the teams, the focus on the customer, you know, willingness to show up and listen and put a balance between what franchisees know about their business operationally and then inspiring them in new ways around the customer and how you grow. So look, it continues to be a really, really challenging marketplace as well, coming out of high inflation and ⁓ some uncertainty globally around supply chains and all sorts of things. So cost pressures and without getting into all the details, I mean, that still is a really challenging environment. So I mean, I’m as motivated as ever to keep on going with that. But the question of how we’ve done it, I don’t think it’s over. I think it continues, they’re the things too.

Sarah
So you mentioned there obviously the kind of two key elements I suppose, there’s obviously trust sits underneath both of these but you’ve talked about a consumer focus and you’ve talked about the franchisees and so is that just a question of literally just being honest and transparent about what you’re doing and hoping that, well encouraging them to come along with you, mean franchisees..can be very challenged by difficult situations. They’re their own business people trying to fit into a ⁓ program that’s changing. Was the franchisee element the hardest, do you think?

Matt
Yeah, I was incredibly empathetic before I even walked in the door to their challenges because of, you know, I’ve been there before. I’d seen what franchises it faced and then they went through all the troubles very publicly, which made their jobs really hard on how to kind of maintain an equity in their business and a value in their business, let alone the motivation of getting up every day and serving customers. So yeah, I think that is probably the hardest thing, but it’s on behalf of those people that it’s the hardest thing.

And we’ve started to really try and put ourselves in front of them, listen to them. But when I look at franchising in general, a franchisee in my mind buys into something because the franchise all brings a level of IP in the brand. They bring expertise, they bring opportunities for growth. But what you touched on is true. mean, at the end of the day, it’s their business. And so the best franchisees… follow the systems to the letter because scale and consistency are the friends in franchising. And once you go through some of the challenges like we did, that fragmentation of a model or letting those standards slip becomes the start of the bigger problems because then you get into a situation where every franchisee thinks the way they’re doing it is the way it should be done. And if you lose control of some of that, that’s a very difficult thing to bring back. And I think the only way to do that is to do it with a very clear customer insight in mind and start to tap into what’s going to deliver new customers and new growth. And that’s been the roadmap we’ve followed to get back into growth. And I think that’s what establishes trust and rebuilds belief and is able to kind of get people back on board. But ⁓ when brands have been around a long time and people have been through a lot, that is a really, really difficult thing to overcome. So I think we’re through the worst of that and we’re starting to bring some really exciting initiatives to life.

But yeah, yeah that has been probably the toughest challenge so far.

Sarah
And you’re talking there about brands that been around a long time. a clear example of that is ⁓ the ⁓ Michel’s Patisserie brand. you’ve called time on that. ⁓ And you’ve prioritized the coffee brands in your business. And also expanding by bringing Firehouse Subs Business from the US, which I understand you may franchise in the future, but not yet. ⁓

Just talk us through a little bit about those decisions and what you think the multi-brand business will look like in five years.

Matt
Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot in that. I think we’ve been a business that, historically has grown through acquisition and it bought a lot of brands. A lot of them at their peak. Michelle’s is a good example of that, where it was bought with a lot of stores. It had been established and it was built. Over time that hasn’t had the investment to keep it relevant to the customer. And there’s been a lot of challenges through supply chain, the emergence of cake marketing, Woolworths, or some Coles, for example. And so a brand like that requires, would require a lot of capital and lot of investment to rebuild. We’ve had to make some choices on what we consider as the best bets for people to run their businesses successfully and have successful unit economics at a store level, which fundamentally underpin the quality of what you can do with the network.
So yeah, we’ve made some choices and we operate in two segments now. We’ve made that really clear around Cafe Coffee Bakery and QSR and the brands that sit within that around Gloria Jeans, Diner King, in particular around our big scale businesses in Australia and globally for Gloria Jeans. We’re in 30 countries for Gloria Jeans. We’ve got Brumbies, which continues to be a really important heartbeat of our bakery business in Australia. We’ve bought a small pie business in Beefies, which is Queensland based at the moment, but came with a factory and we vertically integrate those pies into the network, you know, as a driver of quality, as well as kind of being able to move quickly and innovate. And of course, we’ve got a coffee factory, which supplies coffee to all those businesses as well. So that strategy around Cafe Coffee Bakery has been quite clear and we’ve been quite open about that. And then in QSR, our pizza business with crust is obviously our main play there. And Firehouse Subs that you mentioned comes into that QSR business as well, which gives us some strength of opportunity in a new business and an ability to take on the market leader in that category and that sandwich category in a really different way and work with a rig global ⁓ partner in RBI which gives us the ability to leverage some of that experience as well. So ⁓ that evolution of brands comes with ⁓ an understanding that a franchisee sees that brand that they operate no matter which brand it is as an extension of themselves.

So those again are really difficult conversations when you’re talking to someone about could you convert to a Gloria James to find a pathway for growth that will make you more money and be making more successful. Logically, that sounds like an opportunity. Of course, emotionally, that doesn’t always happen. that becomes really, the bones of how we’re trying to move our business forward with transparent, honest conversations about what that looks like. And what does it look like in five years? Well, I think as we’ve got sharper in terms of their focus and the ability to scale brands and make choices around where capital goes. We can replicate that model and we can start to test and learn on things like beefies. Firehouse comes in, you we will look to franchise that in a few years and then there’s a playbook. We’ve got an ability to run company stores for a few years to prove the model, prove it works. And if there’s more opportunities, then if they fit our business at the right time and they’re good for our shareholders as well as our franchisees, well, of course we continue to look for that.

As I said at the start of the question, there’s a lot to unpack in that. And you could probably spend the whole podcast talking about it, but our focus has really been on getting that consolidation of core brands, focusing on multi-site operators who we know have unlocked the systems. And our job now is to bring digital product, innovation to these businesses to fuel them for the future.

Sarah
So what are the new challenges for retail food businesses in a high-tech world? You mentioned the digital element there. That plays such an important part now.

Matt
Yeah, we’ve been talking about this a lot within particularly our marketing teams. You know, the ability to see your customer, who they are, what they want, what experiences they’re looking for. ⁓ They don’t see the difference between an app and a store. You know, they order product seamlessly and they engage with your brand in a completely different way. ⁓ And the expectations of delivery have gone through the roof. COVID accelerated that of course, but that’s here to stay.

and you’ve got this protection of margin in these channels that you’ve got to think about because of the way that the cost to serve plays out. And we see it as businesses shift their business from purely in-store to online, there’s a real risk of margin erosion inside these businesses as the customer experience is met. And so you’ve got to kind of focus on the quality of experience in the last mile of delivery, for example, but maintain ways of getting value for your pricing model that allows the margin to be recovered. ⁓ And I think where you see discounting for discounting sake to compensate for a lack of that understanding of what a high tech digital environment looks like, you start to get into some real problems. So ⁓ the ability to use first party data, modernize loyalty programs, all become really important ways of engaging a customer through a digital platform to get them coming back and participating with your or engaging with your brand in a really relevant way.

We’re rolling out a whole program now around our voice of customer, which is going to give us real-time feedback loops right down to a store level. So our franchisees will be able to actually see what their customers think of their business, but also the businesses around them so they can pick up on what they need to improve really quickly. And that’s just one example of how we’re using more technology to drive insights and drive outcomes. So there are a lot of really smart young people coming into businesses to unlock a little of this too.

Sarah
Have you got any other examples of how data is actually streamlining things or providing extra insights for franchisees?

Matt
Yeah, well, I think the big one I mentioned our voice of customer program there as we start getting that sort of data aggregated in a way where you can see it. You also got our performance ⁓ and transactional data and being able to draw a line between what a customer thinks of your business, what your performance looks like, and then what your voice of partner programs through suppliers and but really in particularly franchisees being able to correlate that sort of sentiment together to see where performance is being improved and build out the fact that you’ve got great customer feedback, great franchise partner feedback and great transactional performance. That’s the sort of the power and aggregation of data in a way that you can draw the lines between what you’re doing to drive a better outcome. We’re doing a lot of work to kind of get that simple. It’s an aggregation of things to make it simple in terms of how we provide that feedback and feedback loop with a franchisee to drive their business. So ⁓ that’s in an operational sense. And then sort of in the back end, obviously we’re doing a lot more work on how we take customer data to drive insights and unlock opportunity for brands that have been around a long time, but need to modernize and change. And so we’re thinking about how that plays out for the next generation of customer to come in and reappraise these brands for growth. So ⁓ yeah, there’s lots of examples beyond that of, you know, efficiency that we have probably even scratched the surface on things like AI and how that simplifies some of our business processes in particular to allow resources to be deployed in ways that are different and focus on growth. So really interesting area, really interesting area.

Sarah
You mentioned a little bit earlier when we were talking about looking at growth and good examples. You mentioned your better franchises, the multi-unit franchises. Is that multi-unit model something that you ⁓ encourage? Is that something you would like to see ⁓ more in depth across the brands?

Matt
Yeah, and more and more, think it’s, think franchising in many ways is behind a market like the US, which was the home of franchising. We’ve done a few visits over there, just to really understand some of the insights in different ways in different markets. We find them, we know factually that our multi-site operators ⁓ drive better performance out of their stores. That’s fact in our business. So we’ve done a lot of work to engage those people, bring them together as a group, talk about what makes that possible for them and then start to tailor our support model in a different way, including investment and incentive opportunities for them as they grow. But it’s not just financial because as you go from one store to two store to three stores, your challenge of running that business changes and all of a sudden you’ve got to think more around onboarding of staff and development of store managers and teams and

⁓ So there’s a whole lot of opportunity, I think, in how we further amplify ⁓ multi-store operators and we’ve put investment behind that to grow that part of our business. At the same time, you need new franchisees coming in and I think the scope of what a new franchisee looks like changes as well because identifying them early means that their pathway is more likely to succeed if you’re getting the right person in. And we’ve done, we’ve now implemented psychometric profiling of franchisees so we can take our best multi-site operators, profile them, and when new partners come into our business, they take the same profiling test and we can see where the synergies are, and the chances of that being successful then start to come right up. ⁓ And all of that just speaks to the quality of what we’re trying to do to build a business that’s not just obsessed with putting stores down for store’s sake and the quality that underpins it through the location and the franchise partners really key. Multi-site operators play a huge part in that.

Sarah
So multi unit operations obviously it’s about management, it’s about leadership. You’ve talked a little bit about leadership. I wonder if you could just describe what your leadership style is and whether there’s been anyone in particular that’s influenced it.

Matt
I would describe myself as ⁓ energetic. love the kind of debate around new ideas and trying new things and kind of, you know, the intellectual debate around those things at the starting point of coming up with ideas. I really love that. ⁓ I love that, you know, I’m collaborative. I’m quite extroverted. I like being in diverse teams to draw out people’s opinions and bring them together, as I mentioned before. And I’d probably describe myself as… as a result of that, curious, but really driven, know, driven for growth, driven for improvement, driven for results. And I find as I get a bit older and sort of match that with, you know, maybe coaching some of the kids sporting teams and things, the drivers of what motivates you do shift. think early in your career, you’re motivated by self-performance and outcome. I certainly was, and I look back on that now and I think it’s quite selfish, but it’s probably appropriate for the time. Whereas now I get more of a buzz out of seeing a team deliver or a team come together or an individual grower or someone get a promotion or franchisee you have a great result and great success so you sort of you feel more and more that it’s quite a contrast for an extrovert to think you step back out of the light a bit and let people flourish that probably describes more how I think about leadership these days but that’s not easy if you’re trying to also have an opinion and you think you’ve got the answer so that that’s often something I grapple with and try and talk less and listen more as you get older. I think the influences for me are less about people that you would probably know or famous people or anything like that. I don’t really have a kind of famous known person, but I’ve had some great mentors and managers over my time and I’ve tried to take the bits of all of those that I think work, but don’t lose the uniqueness of what I think I can bring.

I draw on all of them, I still talk to all of those people today as they’ve emerged in their careers in successful ways as well. So that network’s really important.

Sarah
What do you fear in business?

Matt
I don’t know if fear is something, fear is probably not a word I would use personally. I don’t fear a lot out of business. I do worry and I worry I think in our environment that you know I often get asked you know what the question of what keeps you awake at night or those sort of questions often come my way. I think my fear in a business like franchising is that complexity gets in the way of success and simplicity and consistency are kind of real drivers, I think, of a successful franchise. ⁓ And you can tell when you walk into a store ⁓ and you can see someone who’s perhaps struggled and what they’ve done in response to that is actually add complexity and they’ve added product lines or they’ve started to try new things in a way that doesn’t fit the brand. So from a performance point of view, those sort of things are a real focus to keep simplicity at the heart of, and I think people naturally… like to get caught up in complexity because it keeps them busy, but actually simple is better. ⁓ Yeah, I don’t know about fear. I hope probably more than fear that people that join our business find a pathway and develop and have the same sort of experiences I had. ⁓ And I guess that sort of sits with me now in this role to make sure that environment is part of what we do. I put that high on the focus area rather than a fear. It’s more of an opportunity around how this evolves these days with the next generation of worker.

Sarah
You’ve talked quite a bit about motivation and obviously the challenge there. And just my final question really is what do you think when you kind of look back at your time heading up RFG, what would you like to have walked away from? What’s the legacy going to be?

Matt
I think the legacy for me is going to be a team that feels like, you know, top to bottom in our business. They understand their role. They understand the purpose of our business. They know what we’re trying to do to support franchisees and they understand the customer that we’re trying to get to, to build growth. And I think that environment that we work in, ⁓ I think shifted a long way since, you know, pre COVID in inside retail food group. And I think that the issues are now behind us and

The scars of that have run pretty deep to be honest with you and we’ve still got reputational challenges out there that people think we are one thing and we’re not. And when you bring new people into the business, we’re starting to see this sort of pleasantly surprised that they took the leap of faith and maybe what they heard out there isn’t what they’re seeing inside our business and got some great people. So I think for the people that have been there a long time, I’d like this period of me being in this role to be one sort of milestone where people go, we really transformed.

how important people are, both our people and how franchise partners are to our business. And when they look back, they think, geez, I’m glad I hung around and I was part of this journey into growth. And for new people coming in, they don’t know any of that and they just see this as a great business to join and they’re happy they did. I think if my legacy can be successful franchisees off the back of that environment, I’d be really happy.

Sarah
Matt, it’s been great to chat. Thank you for your time.

Matt
Thanks, Sarah. Nice to chat. Thank you.