Toledo-based Marco’s Pizza is looking toward the extreme south with plans to expand further into the Caribbean and Latin America, including Mexico.
The company, which already is in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, said this week that it wants to add over 50 franchises at international locations by 2025 through strategic franchising in Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Cayman Islands.
“Marco’s Pizza has experienced amazing success in Puerto Rico, and we expect to build upon this, expanding our footprint throughout the Caribbean and Latin America,” Ron Stilwell, Marco’s chief development officer, said. “Marco’s is an organization rich in heritage and authenticity, and we pride ourselves on delivering a high-quality experience with a high-quality product.”
The company expanded into Puerto Rico with its first franchise in 2015 and will have 19 locations there by the end of this year.
Marco's Pizza claims to be the only national pizza franchise chain that was founded by a native Italian, Pasquale "Pat" Giammarco. As a company, Marco’s currently has over 900 locations in 34 states, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas — and it is still hoping to hit 1,000 locations by the end of the year.
Marco’s said it has been opening a new store every 3½ days on average and has been committed to increasing its international presence while still maintaining its domestic expansion.
In 2015, it gave franchise rights in India to one of its U.S. franchisees with the hope of opening up to 400 stores there by 2025. But there has yet to be a store opened in India.
More recently, in October the company said it was further targeting the Denver area where it already has 20 existing stores. Marco’s said it had set a goal of adding 15 new locations by 2023 in the Denver area through strategic franchise partnerships, though it had yet to sign any new franchisees.
Marco’s has been parlaying its growing brand recognition into new franchised stores wherever it can.
For example, it previously put some emphasis on recruiting military veterans who were exiting the service and looking for investment/job opportunities. Marco’s franchise officials had begun to attend military-sponsored franchise and job fairs for veterans and those whose time in the services was about to expire.
Earlier this year the company was listed at No. 9 on Entrepreneur magazine’s ranking of Top Franchises for Vets.
Marco’s also was ranked No. 4 this year on the “Best Franchise to Buy” list by Forbes’ 2019 study of potential investments. Also earlier this year the company was named the “Most Loved and Most Trusted Pizza Brand” according to a 2019 Harris Poll EquiTrend study.
That study said Marco’s had increased its brand equity by 10 percentage points over the last year and had scored higher on brand equity than all other pizza restaurant brands, including Domino’s Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, and Papa John’s. The study looked at a combination of name familiarity, quality, and purchase consideration.
First Published November 15, 2019, 2:10 p.m.
