BuirSkraan's

BuirSkraan's Corporation

Type	Private Company
Industry	Fast food restaurants Real estate
Founded	June 23, 2006 (2006-06-23)
Founder	Anthony Tolmie
Area served	Makko Oko
Key people	Wioletta Jaworska CEO
Website	buirskraans.com.mk

BuirSkraan's Corporation is a Makkonian privately-owned multinational fast food chain founded in Ckouhills, Livonia, Makko Oko on June 23rd, 2006. BuirSkraan's was founded by father Anthony Tolmie about a year after the end of the economic boom in the nation after his wife, Maria Tolmie, passed away to an undiagnosed health problem because she, as a working parent, saved to put food on the table. BuirSkraan's concept was created from the original recipes of Maria and later of their two children, and always had a motivation of "cheap Makkonian food for a great price". In early 2008, BuirSkraan's opted to expand into franchising to be in more than one city and to be able to generate more profits. By mid-2009, they had to sell the company due to their lack of experience and inability to manage ever-scaling operations. Anthony would stay on as CEO and Chairman until 2014 when he would retire due to disagreements.

Etymology

The name "BuirSkraan's" is Makuri for "ParentFood's", which is a reference to the father directly providing their family recipes cooked for you.

History

2000-2005: The Economic Boom

The economic boom was a time of massive growth in the nation and saw the rise of major subsidization by the Republican Government. The boom was what kicked off the early 2000's however it started in late 1999 after the government's first subsidy program was introduced. By 2005, the subsidies were repealed and the economy started reeling from the effects of that, with approximately 40% of the businesses formed from the programs going out of business due to the lack of them. This saw the nation enter the next era of independence of businesses from the government with rarely any interference except for required regulation.

2006-2007: The Start of BuirSkraan's

A year after the economic boom came to a halt, Maria Tolmie unexpectedly passed away at their home in Ckouhills at the age of 38. An autopsy revealed that she had cancer in the thigh and that "walking would have been unbearable" according to the ME's redacted report released after a RGRA request. Maria had been a jack of all trades in cooking and it was her passion. So, her husband, Anthony, took it upon himself to start a restaurant sharing out these recipes and he quit his full-time job to do it, investing all their life savings into it. BuirSkraan's was chosen as the name because they served food and the food was served from a family to you.

Anthony bought out an abandoned building and revamped it into a tiny restaurant. This restaurant, referred to as "Maria's Home" later on, had a collage of photos of Maria and Anthony's family and Maria herself. Originally, BuirSkraan's was a restaurant, and not fast food, however Anthony noticed later on that many of the foods that took longer to cook, even if they were delicious, were not being bought and instead the quicker-cooked food such as the later-called BuirNugget, which were pieces of fried boneless chicken that were shaped like minerals you might find in a cave, were served. With none of the other fast food chains yet expanding to Ckouhills, Anthony decided to turn BuirSkraan's into a fast food establishment in 2007 and greatly limited the menu, while changing up recipes for other foods to bring the cooking and prep time down.

2008-2009: Expansion & Sale

Business had been doing rather well, with a single month generating upwards of SLO$550K, however, the onslaught of competing establishments brought forth lowering revenues, even though the menu was relatively cheaper overall than other fast food chains. The most expensive item on the menu around 2007-2008 was the special nugget and potato soup that cost SLO$5.50 and only came in one size. Anthony decided to expand operations by opening a franchise program, as it was seen as most cost-effective at the time.

By the end of 2008, five locations had opened up, with three of them opening up in areas with already existing competition. By March 2009, two more had opened, with a planned corporate flagship location in Joria. By July 2009, Anthony explored a potential sale of the business to help "further my wife's dream" and due to the lack of experience and knowledge in managing an ever-expanding franchise operation. Anthony had determined that the cost to onboard experts full-time to manage the franchising program would cost much more than they would get selling it off, to where they would become unprofitable for years potentially.

A sale of BuirSkraan's to Johnson Investments Group for SLO$720.4M was completed in September 2009, with JIG appointing Anthony as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors as a part of the deal.

2010-2015: Era of JIG, BuirMobile & International Expansion

After JIG bought the company, Anthony got to work on setting up a dedicated franchising programs team, in the meantime conceiving new recipes and products for special occasions and as permanent items to keep people coming back. A year after the buyout, BuirSkraan's had 70 franchise locations in operation with another 50 planned within the next two years. The first corporate location other than the original one opened its doors in Joria in April 2011, which also became the flagship location for the business.

By this point in time, sales in a single month mainly came from the franchisees, with monthly fees paid to the company in excess of SLO$150K per store. By mid-2011, the economic downturn was starting to have a more noticeable effect on spending power, and JIG executives believed that with the outlook on forecasts it was only going to get worse, as JIG's investment power and client numbers went down significantly, so they wanted to make more people want to eat at BuirSkraan's, and cater to everybody, so JIG in an effort to try to increase revenues, put down SLO$27B to outfit all 70 franchises and the 2 corporate locations with drive-thrus. The implementation was 100% complete by the end of the year.

The introduction of drive-thrus helped profits, however SLO$27B was not going to be made back quickly with the current fee structure in place for franchises and so they followed along with other fast food chains and instituted a royalty for each sale made. Each sale at a franchise location was SLO$0.64/sale, which with transactional volumes for the fiscal year 2012 netted the company approximately SLO$8B. Most franchise owners at the time protested the "exorbitant cost of the price that we pay for every sale", and some even threatened to terminate their agreements altogether. In early 2013, 59 out of the 70 franchisees attempted to leave, however the company sued citing a breach of contract. The courts ruled in favor of BuirSkraan's in March 2013, with all franchisees being forced to pay legal costs and ride out the duration of the contract.

Near the end of 2013 in November, JIG paid back all of their debt and subsequently lowered their royalty of SLO$0.64/sale down to SLO$0.28/sale before 14 of them finished out their contracts and left. In 2014, JIG wanted to expand to delivery to be able to compete with the other chains, which had already offered delivery years prior, however Anthony denied this request. Infighting led to him retiring from the company, which he cited to the press at the time as "Lines that I never wanted us to be. A smaller operation, not so big." JIG appointed Freud Borkowska as Anthony's replacement.

Freud had ideas to corporatize the company which even after the buyout was still run like a family-owned operation. On July 14th, 2014, BuirSkraan's announced the launch of BuirMobile and mandated that all locations use it. At the same time, BuirSide and BuirHome were launched for pickup and delivery of orders, which could be done exclusively though the app. By the end of the year, there were already 371,000 registered users.

After the success of the BuirMobile app, profits were through the roof and higher than ever. Most stores were making more than square foot than any other in the industry. In October 2015, BuirSkraan's CEO Freud Borkowska announced that BuirSkraan's would be going international with the first destination being Aelandi with plans for the first store, a planned flagship location, due to be opened in the city of Zokretaz by the end of 2016.

2016-2018: Menu Expansions & Changes, New CEO

In January 2016, BuirSkraan's CPO Martin Sobczak announced the BuirRib which was the company's first BBQ product, would be hitting select test markets to potentially become a permanent menu item. A month later they launched a national pilot of all of the foods that were removed back in 2007, seeing which ones were most popular to keep around. In July 2016, the national pilot ended, with multiple products being brought back permanentely and greatly changed to reduce the cooking time. The products brought back include: The Chicken Meatball Sandwich, BuirChilli and the "Healthy Helping" Burger. The CMC had been removed due to ingredient costs and prep time, while the "Healthy Helping" Burger got removed due to expenses regarding adequate storage for vegetables. The BuirChilli was removed due to the costs being too expensive in regards to how many people bought it.

On November 22nd, 2016, BuirSkraan's CEO Freud Borkowska, along with the CEO of BuirSkraan's Aelandi unveiled the first international store and cut the ribbon in Aelandi. The Aelandi menu had a majority of the products that BuirSkraan's provided, however products such as the Chicken Meatball Sandwich and the "Healthy Helping" Burger were excluded. In March 2017, a video was leaked of Freud drunk at a party trashing BuirSkraan's and made later disproven claims that they used expired meat when serving the BuirRib. JIG sacked Freud after the leak and stated to the press "We have the utmost standard of our employees to conduct themselves professionally when around partners or customers". Many went against JIG due to "virtually everybody being the customer". To replace Freud, JIG appointed Wioletta Jaworska as CEO.

In 2018, under new CEO Wioletta Jaworska, an entire healthy foods line was added to the menu, with the "Healthy Helping" Burger being changed in its formula from a beef patty to a soy patty. Foods that were added include the BuirSalwich, which was a salad in a sandwich and lacked any patties and a new bun type that could substitute any burger, which was the wheat bun. In August 2018, BuirSkraan's announced a one-month contest where the most popularly ordered food customizations would be added to the menu as a direct choice. That led to the BuirDouble and Triple burgers and the "Meat Duo" Burger being introduced in September the next month.

Effects of the war & wartime operations

BuirSkraan's offered a "wartime menu" starting around November 2018, two months after the start of the war, after factories were forced to convert to defense production facilities under a Presidential Order, greatly limiting the ingredients available. The wartime menu consisted of the "Healthy Helping" Burger, BuirSalad, BuirSalwich, BuirNuggets and the original Nuggets'n Soup. Special foods were created during this time, some of which would remain permanently after the end of the war. The first of these foods was BuirCoffee, which became so popular that after the war became a permanent menu item and would later be found at its international locations. Another was Chicken BuirBabies, which were BuirNuggets but crisper and in popcorn form. Chicken BuirBabies would later become a permanent item in Catam Pon as BuirPons, being discontinued as a national item in 2021 due to a lack of sales and due to the determined lack of potential.

Profits were greatly reduced in the fast food industry as a whole with the limited menu options not helping matters. From FY 2018-2019, BuirSkraan's made only SLO$135B when in 2017, they made approximately SLO$300B which is a loss of SLO$235B. For the first time in years they had reported a net loss equating SLO$15M.