Cena Meal Prep Franchise Claims Business is Booming
February 24, 2008 by Sean Kelly
Filed under Business
(FranchisePick.Com) Related Articles: Cena Meal Prep Franchise by the Numbers, Cena Meal Prep Franchise Boasts Slump-Defying Sales Model, Cena Meal Prep Franchise by the Numbers
Despite reports of slowing sales, franchisees in distress and the cooling of the “meal assembly kitchen” franchise before it finished preheating, the founders of meal prep franchise Cena are bullish on growth, according to this article in the Spokane Journal:
Meal-prep chain serves up success
Spokane-based Cena has sold franchise rights for 33 outlets
What began here as a single meal-preparation store on the North Side in 2004 has quietly become a fast-growing franchisor with 23 outlets in 17 U.S. states and one Canadian provinceTami Badinger, who owns the company, called Cena Franchising Inc., with her husband, Bruce, says the couple always planned to create something more than a single store.We knew from the moment we thought of it, we wanted to franchise,” she says.
The following year, they sold their first franchise, to a couple in Elk Grove, Calif.
Now, with 22 franchise openings plus the original store under their belts, the Badingers plan to expand further, despite industry projections for slow growth in their niche. Seven Cena outlets are expected to open across the U.S. within the next month or so, and franchise rights have been sold for four other new stores, bringing the total number of franchises the company has sold to 33.
In all, Cena Franchising expects to open about 17 franchise outlets this year, Badinger says, giving it a total of 40 outlets. Read the entire article.
Are you familiar with the Cena or the Cena franchise? Can this schoolteacher – who franchised within a year of opening – succeed where others are struggling? Leave a comment; share your thoughts.
I would challenge the CENA Zors (and other ZORs) to show us the money! How about a little transparency in UFOC’s? How about they disclose ALL store closures, so prospects can make an informed deciscion instead of hiding facts? This happens especially online when ZORS list stores as temporarily closed. tsk tsk
While we’re on the subject-If you are going to supply people with store informationhow about it be kept up to date and accruate? If you can’t then lets not put it out there at all,it’s deceiveing, unless thats your goal! How about we start with EMP? Can they spend some time updating their website to accurately account for the amount of stores that have CLOSED, indy as well as ZOR….the numbers of stores in operation on that website are GROSSLY overstated. It is a very sad way to entice people to buy into a FAILED CONCEPT, by putting out bogus statistics and fiction as fact.
http://www.unhappyfranchisee.com/2008/08/291/
Cena expands meal-assembly business to include bistro
By My-Ly Nguyen
Press & Sun-Bulletin
JOHNSON CITY — Cena, which offers ready-to-cook meals at its site at 201 Oakdale Road, said it has expanded its business to include a bistro.
Cena Fresh Bistro offers lunch and dinner for dine in or take out. Owner Fran Cianciosi said it’s an upscale, affordable eatery featuring organic salads, gourmet sandwiches and soups, and other items.
Cena originally opened as a meal-prep business in Johnson City in October 2007. Cianciosi said he wasn’t getting enough customer traffic so he expanded the business to include the bistro.
Make and Take Gourmet, a meal-assembly business that opened in Vestal last August, closed in May, less than a year after opening. The reasons for the closing were undetermined; Make and Take representatives were unavailable for comment at the time.-I BET they were!!!
Because of the added in-house dining, Cena will no longer be offering public meal assembly sessions or private parties, the business said on its Web site. Gourmet to Go pre-assembled meals still are available for order and pick up.