New Maui Wowi Hawaiian Franchisee Brings the Fun and Simple Coffee and Smoothie Business to Creswell, Oregon - Seattle Post Intelligencer

Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffees and Smoothies welcomes Tina Lopez as their newest franchisee to bring all-natural, premium products to Creswell, Oregon and the surrounding communities

Greenwood Village, Colo. (PRWEB) March 21, 2012

Come rain, come shine, Maui Wowi Hawaiian’s newest franchisee now has the flexibility to work where she wants, when she wants, and how often she wants. For Tina Lopez, this was a key component when deciding to begin her own business with Maui Wowi Hawaiian, an all-natural, fresh fruit smoothie and gourmet coffee franchise company. Since retiring, Lopez has decided to live a laidback lifestyle and serve quality products to Creswell, Oregon and the surrounding communities.

“I embrace change and was looking for something fun and a business where I could be outdoors, enjoying the sun and the nice weather or inside when it is not so nice out,” said Lopez. “Maui Wowi gives me the flexibility and supplemental income I’ve wanted. I have the opportunity to choose from a multitude of events and have fun.”

Lopez worked in a leadership position with the USDA, Forest Service in Human Resources for 30 years, until she decided to retire in 2010. Since then, she has been looking for the perfect fit to give her an outlet for her personality and laidback charm. “I am a very energetic individual and know myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t last long being retired,” said Lopez. “I’m ready for the change in lifestyle from business suits and heels to Hawaiian attire and flip flops. Maui Wowi is the perfect franchise for me to invest my future time and energy.”

Maui Wowi Hawaiian completed a successful transfer of agreement from an existing Franchisee to Lopez, which included one mobile event unit and one catering unit. The mobile event unit, called a Ka’anapli Cart, will allow Lopez to work an endless list of events and venues such as community youth athletic clubs, tournaments, festivals, and flea markets. Her additional catering unit will open up the doors to even more opportunity to work private functions like graduations, weddings, and corporate events.

Within the next two years, Lopez aspires to be serving the ‘Aloha Spirit’ all across Oregon with her Ka’anapali Cart, catering unit, and the addition of a concession trailer that will give her more options to work indoors or out. “To me, the opportunities are endless,” she said.

Maui Wowi Hawaiian specializes in serving premium products with island flair that include all-natural fresh fruit smoothies, gourmet Hawaiian coffees, and decadent espresso beverages. They can be found at events, venues, kiosks, and fixed retail locations, with franchise opportunities in the U.S. and internationally.

About Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffees & Smoothies:
Before the days of big Hawaiian resort hotels and fiberglass surfboards, surfers spent long, lazy days partaking in the tasty waves of the North Shore beaches. As the legends of the surfers grew, many were drawn to the healthy, carefree lifestyle of Hawaii. Since 1982, Maui Wowi Hawaiian has been spreading the ‘Aloha Spirit’ across the world with its premium Hawaiian coffees, all-natural fresh fruit smoothies and authentic Hawaiian products. From event carts, mall kiosks and stand-alone retail locations, Maui Wowi Hawaiian operates 605 units worldwide. For more information about Maui Wowi Hawaiian’s flexible, low cost franchising opportunities, visit http://www.mauiwowifranchise.com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/3/prweb9310478.htm

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New Maui Wowi Hawaiian Franchisee Brings the Fun and Simple Coffee and Smoothie Business to Creswell, Oregon - YAHOO!

Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffees and Smoothies welcomes Tina Lopez as their newest franchisee to bring all-natural, premium products to Creswell, Oregon and the surrounding communities

Greenwood Village, Colo. (PRWEB) March 21, 2012

Come rain, come shine, Maui Wowi Hawaiian’s newest franchisee now has the flexibility to work where she wants, when she wants, and how often she wants. For Tina Lopez, this was a key component when deciding to begin her own business with Maui Wowi Hawaiian, an all-natural, fresh fruit smoothie and gourmet coffee franchise company. Since retiring, Lopez has decided to live a laidback lifestyle and serve quality products to Creswell, Oregon and the surrounding communities.

“I embrace change and was looking for something fun and a business where I could be outdoors, enjoying the sun and the nice weather or inside when it is not so nice out,” said Lopez. “Maui Wowi gives me the flexibility and supplemental income I’ve wanted. I have the opportunity to choose from a multitude of events and have fun.”

Lopez worked in a leadership position with the USDA, Forest Service in Human Resources for 30 years, until she decided to retire in 2010. Since then, she has been looking for the perfect fit to give her an outlet for her personality and laidback charm. “I am a very energetic individual and know myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t last long being retired,” said Lopez. “I’m ready for the change in lifestyle from business suits and heels to Hawaiian attire and flip flops. Maui Wowi is the perfect franchise for me to invest my future time and energy.”

Maui Wowi Hawaiian completed a successful transfer of agreement from an existing Franchisee to Lopez, which included one mobile event unit and one catering unit. The mobile event unit, called a Ka’anapli Cart, will allow Lopez to work an endless list of events and venues such as community youth athletic clubs, tournaments, festivals, and flea markets. Her additional catering unit will open up the doors to even more opportunity to work private functions like graduations, weddings, and corporate events.

Within the next two years, Lopez aspires to be serving the ‘Aloha Spirit’ all across Oregon with her Ka’anapali Cart, catering unit, and the addition of a concession trailer that will give her more options to work indoors or out. “To me, the opportunities are endless,” she said.

Maui Wowi Hawaiian specializes in serving premium products with island flair that include all-natural fresh fruit smoothies, gourmet Hawaiian coffees, and decadent espresso beverages. They can be found at events, venues, kiosks, and fixed retail locations, with franchise opportunities in the U.S. and internationally.

About Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffees & Smoothies:

Before the days of big Hawaiian resort hotels and fiberglass surfboards, surfers spent long, lazy days partaking in the tasty waves of the North Shore beaches. As the legends of the surfers grew, many were drawn to the healthy, carefree lifestyle of Hawaii. Since 1982, Maui Wowi Hawaiian has been spreading the ‘Aloha Spirit’ across the world with its premium Hawaiian coffees, all-natural fresh fruit smoothies and authentic Hawaiian products. From event carts, mall kiosks and stand-alone retail locations, Maui Wowi Hawaiian operates 605 units worldwide. For more information about Maui Wowi Hawaiian’s flexible, low cost franchising opportunities, visit http://www.mauiwowifranchise.com.

Justin Livingston
Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffees & Smoothies
877-849-6992
Email Information

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Zumo smoothie bars still have juicy prospects in the French market

The Irish Times - Friday, February 10, 2012 RUADHÁN MAC CORMAIC, in Paris

WILDGEESE: EMIGRANT BUSINESS LEADERS ON OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD: Gilliane Quinn de Schonen MD, Zumo juice bar franchise, in France

THEY HAD high hopes for the Zumo juice bar in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northern suburb of Paris. “It was new, it was very pretty, everyone was very happy with it,” recalls Gilliane Quinn de Schonen, MD of the franchise in France. “Then it opened and sales were pathetic.”

Mystified, Quinn – who was living in Dublin at the time – flew to Paris, went straight to the shopping centre in Aulnay, donned a uniform and prepared some tasting trays. And still there were no takers. “Of course, it was Ramadan. We had ticked all the boxes – how many shoppers, competitors, everything else. But we’d forgotten about Ramadan.”

The Aulnay bar does a good trade these days, but Quinn tells the story as a lesson in assuming a good product can be sold the same way everywhere. It’s an idea her company has grappled with constantly since setting up the first juice bars in France in 2008.

Whereas Irish people will buy a smoothie at any time of day and drink it on the move, French customers won’t. “The lunchtime trade just didn’t exist,” Quinn remarks. Eighty per cent of business comes after 3pm. “They couldn’t imagine having a juice for lunch. You have to sit down. You need a meal. And it’s not done to eat while you walk.”

So Zumo adapted, adding soup to the menu and putting pressure on shopping centres to provide more seating. Sitting in her office in central Paris on a wintry afternoon, Quinn can afford a smile at those early lessons. Rapid early growth of the French business was followed by a difficult period in 2010, culminating in the closure of several loss-making outlets, but the company now has 85 staff, 12 successful bars and a sure footing in the market.

Quinn has become a prominent figure in the community of Irish business people in one of Ireland’s biggest markets. Her connections to France stretch back to childhood, thanks to a memorable French teacher and her parents’ decision to send her here to work on the language. When she graduated from Trinity College in 1987, she moved to London – as did about 80 per cent of her class – to work with management consultants Bain Company. A transfer to the Paris office followed and, after two years, she packed in the job and moved to Chile to do a year’s charity work. “I thought I’d never get the chance to do it again,” she says.

But Paris exerted its pull. Quinn returned, married Frenchman Nicolas de Schonen and took a job in the food industry. Her post involved working with British food companies entering the French market by selling triangular sandwiches, ready meals and other then-virtually unknown imports to big retailers such as Auchan and Carrefour. With a French business partner, Quinn set up her own consultancy, specialising in advising retailers on the latest trends in the industry. One project was to design Daily Monop, the flagship city centre convenience store chain run by Monoprix.

“Although France was the first country to invent hypermarkets, by the early 2000s they were beginning to reach the end of their cycle,” Quinn says. “They were so powerful that they didn’t see that young people were not going to be driving cars, they were not going to be going out to your hypermarket in the suburbs. They want something in the city centre.”

Monoprix’s competitors duly followed suit.

Quinn’s move into the food business was less a departure than a return. Her father is Feargal Quinn, senator and founder of Superquinn, and the business was “in my blood” – from her days helping on the shop floor as a child to joining the board in the 2000s.

Just before the Quinn family sold their interest in Superquinn in 2005, Gilliane and her own family moved back to Ireland for the first time since she had left as a 20-year-old. “It was a very interesting time to be in Ireland. I remember thinking when I moved back, I’d love to buy a little house, and just seeing prices go up and up. Places were more expensive than in France. It was just crazy.”

But Paris called once again. Two Irish business people were bringing the Zumo franchise to France, and Quinn – who had set up Ireland’s first juice bar in a Superquinn store after coming across the concept in the US in 1998 – came aboard. The first bar – in a Lyon shopping centre – was a huge success, and won a prize in 2010 for the highest sales per square metre in France. “We thought, gosh, this is phenomenal. If we roll this out across the whole of France, we will be doing fantastically.” The firm quickly opened 20 stores, a move Quinn now says was a mistake. “Some of them were fantastic successes, but some of them weren’t.”

When she became MD in 2010, her task was to oversee cutbacks. These days, the firm’s 12 outlets are doing well, and Quinn is convinced – not least because its offer chimes with governments’ healthy eating campaigns – that the concept is here to stay. “The minister for health does all our advertising for us,” as she puts it.

Twenty-five years after she left Dublin in an earlier wave of emigrants, she has no regrets. She moves back and forth between Ireland and France these days, and is glad that her children have close links with her country. “It’s wonderful to see more. It’s good to go away. And then you appreciate much more what you have back in Ireland.”

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