Fighting cost-of-living increases, one chicken at a time
By Tia Priest-Willimott
For many of us, playing pretend shops was our favourite childhood activity. Bartering with other stalls, using sticks and rocks as money, and selling the best-looking leaves we could find.
Some talented people managed to turn these games into a profession and create a business that seeks to fulfill a need within society. However, as cost of living becomes more expensive and inflation becomes the word on everyone’s lips, many businesses are experiencing a significant decrease in consumer spending, causing a need to attract customers in innovative ways.
Canberra is home to hundreds of small business owners who love working to supply locals with homemade high-quality products. However, according to the latest research from technology business Square and data analytics firm, YouGov, the majority of Canberra businesses are concerned about the future (60%), citing reduced consumer spending due to cost-of-living concerns (30%) as the top barrier to business growth, followed by increased production costs due to inflation (29%), and keeping products and services new and fresh to stay competitive (27%).
Many small businesses, such as Fricken Chicken, are finding ways to adapt around such an unprecedented time. Fricken Chicken is a local, family-owned Canberra business, specialising in their family’s secret fried chicken recipe. Mo Saad is one of the proud co-owners of Fricken Chicken and despite the difficulties the business has faced, he’s confident it will continue to thrive. He works alongside brother Marwan Saad and the two enjoy selling homemade family recipe products.
Fricken Chicken opened as a food truck in April of 2018, and after seeing the success it brought, Mo and his brother decided to open a physical store. Unfortunately, the store was opened right on the brink of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown and the brothers had to quickly adapt.
The team decided to hold the opening date of the store by two weeks, following the announcement Canberra’s lockdown would only be two weeks. As the lockdown end date kept getting pushed back, Mo and his brother changed their vision and opened with what they had, turning their store into a pickup and online delivery services station.
“Essentially, we were almost running like a food truck operation from a brick-and-mortar store which is a bit of a strange feeling when you’re really excited that you finally have a dining area and you’re expanding your menu … but at the end of the day we were basically just running a stationary food truck.”
Another challenge Fricken Chicken have learned to work around is the cost-of-living crisis and the effect it has on their customers. Not only did they have to manage their finances, but they also had to balance this with the number of customers they were receiving. Thus, the dilemma was presented – is it worth increasing prices to cover for the loss of customers or is it better to keep the prices lower in the hopes more customers will then come to you?
For Mo and Marwen, they prioritised their customers and strived to keep prices as they were. They wanted their food to still be good quality and not break their customers' budgets. However, it wasn’t as simple as it initially appeared...
“Some of the drink lines, we had to drop the more expensive ones for something [with] a better value, just so we [could] remain competitive and have … good quantities and portions, so there were slight changes from the offering. But the base menu pretty much remained the same.”
While customers may have noted the change in drinks, what they probably wouldn’t have seen is how hard the team were working behind the scenes.
“[We] negotiated with our suppliers and made the necessary changes wherever we had to, [we’re] trying to get better value supply. [We have] to remain competitive and not increase prices dramatically.”
During the time of the cost-of-living crisis, the team have only had one price increase “which was very minimal”, just to remain competitive and survive in the market.
Mo and his team understand fluctuations in the market and the importance of being able to look closer at their numbers during those times to properly work around what they can get. But something just as important in their eyes, is prioritising relationships with their product suppliers, particularly other locals. Their chicken suppliers – a family-run local business, have been providing them with their chicken since day one.
“It’s very different from a big multinational or national supplier, you get that … feeling of [them] going above and beyond to make sure that we succeed as well, so there’s a mutual benefit; you obviously might pay a little bit more but you get that personal touch and support any time.”
After at least a few months into the financial year, Mo and his team are looking closely at their financial figures. But in such a time like this, it’s difficult for the business to predict any changes in customers or the state of the world.
“You can do the best that you can do with what you have but obviously there’s too many things happening at the same time. There’s ... floods that affect crops … there’s all these bushfires and everything that have [sic] a bit of a lag effect with suppliers manufacturing … they have reserves and storage but there’s a bit of a lag until we see the effect.
“I don’t think in the business industry history there’s been as [many] global issues [happening] at the same time, so it’s a little bit harder to predict.”
Despite this, the team are looking forward to keep serving Canberra a plate stacked with high quality fried chicken, with the extra benefit of seeing customers eat with a smile. In such a time like this, it’s so important that we as consumers think consciously about where we spend – how can we support local businesses and get the most out of our money? Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m craving a fricken chicken burger…