 In less than five years, Super Suppers has multiplied into 205 franchisees in 40 states, giving other meal-assembly companies a run for their money. The husband-and-wife team plan to expand the business internationally in the next six months.
Fort Worth, Texas-based Super Suppers was established when founder Judie Byrd decided to offer her culinary students the opportunity to make a day, week or month’s worth of take-home meals to serve to their families. She and her husband, CEO Bill Byrd, opened the Culinary School of Fort Worth in 2003, where they began testing and implementing the monthly recipes for their first Super Suppers branch.
In less than five years, Super Suppers has multiplied into 205 franchisees in 40 states, giving other meal-assembly companies a run for their money. The husband-and-wife team plan to expand the business internationally in the next six months. In the meantime, they’re working on developing their culinary school’s curriculum, writing cookbooks, and taping a cooking show to be aired across the nation this fall.
In an interview with Food and Drink, Bill and Judie Byrd explain how Super Suppers was started, where they plan to take it, and why they feel it’s important for families to sit around the dinner table for a home-cooked meal – no matter how busy they are.
FAD: I understand that Super Suppers was spawned off of your cooking school?
Judie Byrd: One night, I was teaching a class from home called “20 Minutes from Grocery Bag to Dinner Table.” After class was over, the moms came up and said, “Judie, those are great recipes, but we don’t want to go to the grocery store and buy onions and chop them.”
After they left, my assistants and I started talking, and we had the idea for them to come in, put together all the prepared ingredients, and then take the meal home to cook it. We called the class “Super Suppers,” and it evolved from there. Then, Bill came up with the idea building a culinary school where people could take cooking classes after work and on the weekends.
Bill Byrd: That’s when I jumped in. I had sold a chocolate factory and was doing other things. So, I said, “Hey! Let’s build this unit.” We built the culinary school and then we started franchising Super Suppers in 2003. We sold our first franchise in 2004. We’ve been blessed; it’s been neat to watch it grow.
FAD: What are some of the different services that you provide?
JB: We started Grab-N-Go when it became apparent to us that some moms didn’t have time to come in and make a bunch of meals. They just wanted to come in, grab the food and run. So, we had a case up front full of food we made up ahead of time. They can come in, grab the food and take it home and cook it for dinner that night.
BB: They would come to the store the first time and do it themselves; then, they come back and do it a second time. By the third time, it’s a telephone call to the store saying, “Hey! This is Susie. Could you make me another dinner?” What happens is that most of them have it preassembled. The trend has been in that direction.
JB: Then, Bill was reading about what moms want. He’s a voracious reader, and he read that moms don’t want to unbuckle their kids from their car seats more than once per trip. So, we started having Curbside-To-Go in February. You can call ahead and say, ‘I want Mom’s Lasagna, hold the onions, and I’ll be there at 5:20 p.m. You can pull up and a Super Suppers staff member will run it out to your car.
Our private parties are a fun time for the girls to get together and have a glass of wine or a soda, talk about their kids and put some food together. Parties have also been held by coworkers, wedding parties or corporations that use Super Suppers as an employee or client perk. Fill-Your-Freezer-Days happen at the end of the month before all the entrees are changed out for the new month. Employees take all the ingredients from the existing month, make them up and put them in the freezer. You can go and buy it a discount, which varies per franchise.
FAD: How much freedom do you give franchisees to create their own menus?
BB: Our stores like to have their freedom, and they like to be able to choose six of their own entrees.
JB: We learned that the tastes in our country can be so different. My Mexican catfish goes great in Texas and Arizona, but it does not fly in New York City. But, there, they love things like Shepherd’s Pie. That’s not really popular in Arizona. It’s a little heavy for them. So, now, we have an entrée library where franchises can pick regional dishes to suit their area.
FAD: What happens when someone wants to open a franchise?
BB: They come to school for a week; that’s part of the franchise fee. We teach them how to operate a store, how many employees they will need, where they should stand [and] what they should be doing.
JB: It’s so organized. It’s like a business school in one week. We role-play marketing; we teach them everything about IT and how to use their Web sites. We differ from a lot of companies in our field in that each of our franchisees have their own Web site. This is Bill’s entrepreneurial spirit. He wants each of our franchisees to have as much control as they can. Every month, we send them streams of data to print off: the recipes, the order numbers for each product and instructions of what to do each month.
BB: About 45 pages of detailed instructions are sent out each month. Judie is also in charge of food development, and her team puts out 12 new entrees a month. It’s quite a process to go through. We try new things all the time. We come up with something, and then when we look up, everybody else is doing it.
JB: I think that’s because of our age. Bill is an old business warrior. He’s done business all his life, so things don’t come as a surprise to him in this business. He knows that in any business, you can’t stay stagnant. He teaches us to be creative and to look at things on the horizon that can save mom time, energy and money.
BB: One other interesting tidbit is that nearly everyone on our senior staff is a woman with two kids, and that’s our market. So, what we do lots of times is have them make a decision as a mom only. It’s like our own internal focus group, and it really gives us an edge on creating a difference in the presentation of the food and the whole process overall.
FAD: Do you plan to expand internationally?
BB: We’re going to gear up in the next six months with the international shoot. Canada really wants to do something with us. We have interest in England. We have a real interest in Japan. A Japanese delegation has already visited our place, and they’re really excited about it. We’re working in the menu department to see if our American food will sell to the Japanese in Tokyo. If it works, we’ll start dropping stores there.
FAD: Judie, I hear you are going to have your own cooking show.
JB: Yes, and we couldn’t be more excited. It’s called “Judie Byrd’s Kitchen.” It starts airing in the fall on Family Net, a national cable TV network. In May and June, we’re taping 13 segments.
BB: The network is available in about 30 million households across America.
JB: We’re going to tape the whole thing out of our home. I said to the producers, “Oh, I wish we could recapture the magic of having the cooking school in my home,” because there was something magical to these gals getting out of the house at night and coming into my home. I got to teach them more than cooking. I am so passionate about bringing the family back to the dinner table; that’s what gets me up in the morning.
FAD: And you have a cookbook, The Super Suppers Cookbook, too. How do you find the time to run 205 franchises and Culinary School of Fort Worth, write cookbooks and have your own show?
JB: I don’t! Bill is CEO of the entire company, which includes the cooking school and Super Suppers.
BB: CEO stands for Chief-Everything-Officer – even washing the floors.
JB: Bill’s always run his business like that, and I have, too. We still take out the garbage; we still mop the floors. Anything we would ask someone else to do, we are willing to do it. We have an executive chef who is an administrator. She has excellent chefs who work for her and teach the classes.
BB: Like Judie said – we started the Culinary School of Fort Worth as a night school, but we’re starting to have students come in and ask to take classes during the daytime. We’ll probably initiate our first day class next September.
FAD: Where would you like to see Super Suppers in 10 years?
JB: In every home in every city in America, because there are moms everywhere who need this. I think we need one in Maui especially. Yes, I like that idea. Honey, can I be the one who opens the Maui franchise?
Bill: Actually, we do have two in Alaska, and they’re just knocking the socks off of those people up there.
JB: And it all started in our home.
BB: It’s the food Judie raised our kids with.
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