Interview: Salmon Company’s Fly Chicken lands at Bergen Airport

NORWAY. Norwegian food & beverage specialist Salmon Company is set to open its Fly Chicken concept in a travel environment for the first time, capturing a 75-seat, 232sq m space for a fast-food concession in the departure hall at Bergen Airport.

CEO Ronny Gjøse spoke to The Moodie Davitt Report Senior Business Editor Mark Lane about how his company beat off competition from some major travel F&B groups to secure the concession. 

He also reveals his plans for further expansion with Fly Chicken and Salmon Company’s other restaurant brand, Pink Fish, which also has a foothold in the airport space. 

Mark Lane: Ronny, please give our readers a brief introduction to the Fly Chicken brand. 

Ronny Gjøse: The Fly Chicken brand was developed in 2018 as a high-quality fried chicken concept with an innovative market approach and brand identity. We currently have 11 stores, all in Norway, with another to open in December. Come January, the newest of course I am delighted to say will be at Bergen Airport.

Our core product is authentic fried chicken in different varieties, accompanied by sides such as loaded fries, house dips and smoked hot sauces. The brand’s strapline is the catchy ‘clucking good’ and I’d describe the Fly Chicken offer as ‘real food, served fast’. 

Alongside a wide array of fried chicken sandwiches, or burgers, we have a unique product portfolio which includes innovations such as Fly Mandy (fried chicken in a croissant) and Fly Kebab (a twist to the classic kebab using fried chicken), plus sweet options such as our homemade Fly Cookie.

People just love great fast food, and Fly Chicken is the first homegrown concept bringing real fried chicken restaurants to the Norwegian consumer. The COVID-19 crisis has brought many challenges to the early development of the brand, but I’m proud to say the concept is now very firmly established as a favourite in our home market of Norway. 

Why do you see Bergen as an attractive location to enter the airport market in Norway?  

Bergen Airport is the second largest airport in Norway, and is an important hub for energy and oil related business, as well as for tourists, as Bergen is the gateway to the fjords. There are also many flights per day between Bergen and the major cities of Norway, and the location for Fly Chicken is just opposite two of the busiest gates at the airport. 

It is also a good showcase for us to be present at the airport, as there are many travellers who will get their first introduction to the brand. We are already established with one very busy Fly Chicken restaurant in downtown Bergen, so we found it interesting to expand out to the airport.

Our team has good experience of operating restaurants in the airport space and we were able to handle what was quite a complex tender. We think this is a fantastic opportunity for us. 

This is the first time that Bergen Airport operator Avinor have wanted and requested a large fast food restaurant concept in the departure hall, and I believe it is timely. This is an F&B category that is growing in popularity with travellers – the need for speed and something fast on the move is crucial.

We are looking forward to serving high quality fast comfort food to travellers at the airport, something that is a cut above the traditional ‘junk food’ widely available in travel environments.

Beating off competition from some big name operators in the travel dining industry is quite an achievement, given the scale of their operations. What do you believe were the key factors in securing this Fly Chicken concession?  

Only Avinor will know the real answer, but I think it is partly down to our excellent understanding of the airport F&B market. I personally have over 15 years’ experience of operation, concept development and handling tenders at Norwegian airports.

For a number of years I was Managing Director of Umoe Restaurants and also a joint venture between Umoe Restaurants and HMSHost, which operated F&B outlets in the airport space. I left the company in 2016 and started as a food entrepreneur, founding the Pink Fish restaurant chain with my business partner and Chairman Svein Sandvik and Chef Geir Skeie.

That has gone on to break into the airport space, so I do understand the business, the travellers’ needs, and the situation that they are in terms of the challenges of finding something good to eat when on the move in what can be a stressful environment.  

Winning tenders in competition against this quality of airport F&B opposition is probably easier for you in your home territory, where you know the market so well, than outside Norway. Would you agree?  

No, I don’t. I think that the competition in Norway is extremely high, and the big players such as SSP and HMSHost are present and handling a huge portfolio of concepts. This gives them the possibility to put in the ‘right’ concept in each location.

Also, this particular tender attracted bids from some other high-quality Norwegian concepts, so I can say that the competition was fierce and winning this concession was no easy task.

The price of rent for F&B space at Norwegian airports is extremely high, so it is tough to present a business model which you think can guarantee success, and hopefully we will deliver on that with Fly Chicken.

So for us, landing a contract at Bergen Airport is a tremendous achievement – we are very happy to win this tender/location, and are already in full speed to finalise the renovation of the space we have inherited, as we prepare for opening in January 2023.

Following this success, do you have airport ambitions for the Fly Chicken brand outside your own country?  

We think that there is a big international potential for Fly Chicken, both as standalone restaurants on high streets and in urban districts, as well as in shopping malls and busy travel locations such as airports and railway stations.

We are already in dialogue with some companies that have reached out to us and want to franchise our concept. But at this early stage we want to have full control of our operation, guest experience and deliverance of the concept. That’s why we own and operate all of our Fly Chicken restaurants independently currently.

Having said that, we would consider growing Fly Chicken at airports with an international partner, as we believe a high-quality fried chicken restaurant concept could be a success in any number of international airport markets.

You operate a very successful location for your Pink Fish fast casual seafood restaurant concept at Norway’s Stavanger Airport, but I understand you have closed your second airport location at Singapore Jewel Changi. Can you explain why that happened? 

The closure at Jewel Airport came about due to the airport operator repurposing and renovating an area of the terminal in which our Pink Fish restaurant was located. The space was reconfigured to allow airport guests wider access to the famous Rain Vortex feature at Jewel. 

They couldn’t find a new location that suited us, so we did not renew our concession there. But that it is not to say we will not return to the airport if the right concession opportunity becomes available in the future. 

We are, however, still present in Singapore with a self-operated downtown Pink Fish Restaurant at One Raffles Place, a great location. Our Pink Fish operation at Stavanger airport continues to thrive, and we are currently seeing good passenger and sales growth there.

What are your wider plans for the Pink Fish concept now? 

We still believe in the Pink Fish brand’s international potential. The concept is of better quality and has a uniqueness that the traditional international mega fast-food concepts lack. The mix of quality, price and speed is the winning recipe for our brand. 

Our focus is to now grow Pink Fish internationally via franchise or JV, rather than in the Norwegian market, where we have one successful restaurant for the brand in Oslo, our flagship store at Munch Brygge in the capital, plus our operation at Stavanger Airport.

We have recently entered into a Pink Fish franchise agreement with The Cloud in UAE, where they will open eight sales units within 12 months in the country. Three of those are already operating, one in Dubai and two in Abu Dhabi. We also have a franchise agreement in place for two Pink Fish restaurants in Brussels and two in Lithuania which are set to open in 2023, so this is very interesting development for us.

Norwegian salmon and especially the poke category is really growing, and the combination with sustainability, health and traceability is a good combination. Pink Fish is a future-ready concept with a lot of potential, and together with Fly Chicken, we look forward to bringing our high-quality comfort food to more markets across the world.