Five Guys might fit with the premium burger trend, but it is certainly not trendy – on that point its UK MD John Eckbert is quite clear. “What we’ve accomplished, we’ve not done by adding a slice of avocado,” he says. “Twenty five years from now we’ll still be serving the same 15 free toppings that come on a Five Guys burger. There’s really nothing trendy about it.”
The American burger chain has garnered a cult following among business people, students and families alike for its freshly prepared, customised burgers. A whopping 59 restaurants have been opened in the UK since 2013, with turnover for 2016 set to grow to just under £90 million. But with its unpretentious red and white diner décor – and an absence of vintage filament bulbs – it has not achieved this growth by being cool. Quality and freshness are the real drivers here.
“There is a movement towards a quality offering,” says the former investment banker from Florida. “People are looking for something better – and freshness is key.” A 2015 survey by market strategist Pragma found that the top food priority for British consumers is that it is freshly made. This is not a trend that Five Guys has been adjusted for, says Eckbert – “it was part of the brand from the very beginning”.
Ever since Jerry Murrell and his five sons set up their first burger joint in Arlington, Virginia back in 1986, the business has refused to cut corners on the quality and freshness of its ingredients. Like other fast food giants, Five Guys is obsessive about brand consistency, using the same size, colour specs and quality of produce every time. But the quality and freshness of ingredients is the most important thing to Eckbert: “Everything we serve is hand-prepared on the day – we have no microwaves, no timers, no freezers.”
Unsurprisingly, the brand’s main ingredient is potatoes – with the UK business getting through 350-400 tonnes a year. Purchasing and supply chain director Andrew Rose won’t let on which variety he uses, but it is the same as McCain’s and several competitors, he tells me – “it is highly sought after”. Where Five Guys differs from the competition is in the way it harvests and prepares its spuds: “There is a huge contrast here”, says Eckbert.
With a number of different UK growers in the programme, the chain’s main crop is harvested from late September until June or July, at which point stores switch to the gap crop for the rest of the year. Unlike many other fast food chains, Five Guys cooks its fries from fresh, not frozen, with each potato chipped and washed in store. This is why you see big white and red bags piled high in Five Guys restaurants:.“No, they’re not props,” says Rose. “They’re full of real potatoes.”
This doesn’t only make the chain’s fries fresher; it also makes them harder work to source and prepare. “The way most of our competitors operate is that, immediately after their potatoes are harvested in August or September, they are washed, fried and then frozen,” Eckbert explains. “They then sit in a frozen state throughout the whole rest of the year.” Five Guys, by contrast, works with fresh product year round, placing challenges on it to maintain consistent, high-quality supply.
“It’s not about having an identical fry all through the year,” says Rose. “The sugars and starches naturally evolve. But we’re constantly checking the quality of the potato, doing fry tests on every farm, and testing the dry matter and sugar content. Every year we’re also working out where that fine point is between getting the best out of the main crop and switching to the gap crop.”
When it comes to prepping and frying the chips, operations are no less meticulous. The potatoes are washed several times to remove the starch and then pre-fried in peanut oil – chosen for its high smoke point and particular flavour. The water on the chips boils, which forces steam out of the fry and forms a seal around each one. This means that when they are cooked for a second time, the fries don’t absorb the oil and are less greasy. “Our fry cooks have to know how to cook the perfect fry according to our standards,” says Eckbert, who is trained to step in and work any aspect of the kitchen himself. “There are no laptop jobs at Five Guys,” he grins.
This obsessive attention to detail is apparent in the business’s beef procurement and preparation too, with an insistence on grain-fed, uniformly crafted patties – which weigh in at exactly 3.6oz every time and come two-to-a-burger. The vast majority of British beef is grass-fed but, in line with its American stores, Five Guys serves only grain-fed burgers. “The fat weaves naturally into the lean, and this makes for an incredibly sweet and tender mince,” Eckbert explains. “We piggybacked on the programme of a very high-end Italian grocery store chain,” he says – again holding his cards close to his chest.
The provenance of the meat is also of paramount importance, says Rose, who uses two suppliers in Ireland and one in Scotland. The meat is tracked right through the feeding programme, slaughter process, grind and into store, with the supply chain director praising his cattle farmers for their continuity of supply. “We’re very pleased with the vendors we have and we’re happy to grow and scale with them,” Rose says. “It’s really hard to qualify a new vendor so we are typically very loyal to the guys who have grown with us.” Similar loyalty is shown by the chain’s customers, who have turned out in their droves at store openings across the UK. Five Guys fanatics have also been vocal on Twitter, urging the brand to open restaurants in their own cities. But this has nothing to do with marketing – an aspect of the business that simply doesn’t exist.
Since 1986 Five Guys has not spent a single cent on marketing – a policy that Eckbert has embraced in the UK. “That was the Morrells’ conviction right from the beginning,” he says. “They believe that the best way to build a business is to put all your money into the quality of the product and the crews that make it. Then you let your customers do the selling for you.”
There is “a bit of genius” in this approach, Eckbert believes, because when it comes to marketing, his core customers, the millennials, simply don’t buy it. Twenty to 36-year-olds eat out more than any other generation in the UK, according to research by Morgan Stanley, and “they don’t believe anything that is marketed to them,” says Eckbert. “If you tell them X,Y,Z, they are likely to go D, E, F.” Better to rely on word of mouth then? “Yes, that’s authentic, that’s believable.”
Another thing that Five Guys avoids is new product development, sticking instead to what it does best: burgers, fries, and a few hot dogs. “Everybody says we should do a salad, chicken, but it’s actually really confusing and the complications are exponential,” Eckbert says. “What’s really driven the food concepts of the past five to 10 years is the drive for quality, not quantity. Customers are looking for the best burger, the best chicken sandwich.”
As Eckbert and Rose strive for the perfect burger and fries, one thing is clear: they don’t want Five Guys to be a jack-of-all-trades, but a master of one.
