Chris Scanlan leads Blue Pacific Brands, based in Hawaii.
Blue Pacific Brands Founder Chris Scanlan hasn’t lived in Hawaii his whole life, but he’s learned a lot in his time growing franchise brands in The Aloha State. “What’s really interesting in Hawaii is that the local consumer base has a lot of great local restaurants … but they don’t have a lot of the national brands,” Scanlan said. “So, the opportunity is to bring them national brands that are new to them or take existing national brands that are here and localize them.”
Hawaiians are proud of their state, culture and community, Scanland said. “The operators of these brands need to understand you already have a really passionate consumer base,” he said.
Because franchising gives owners the brand recognition while still operating like a local business, Scanlan says, “It’s as simple as putting a sign on the front door that says locally owned and operated.”
“I just learned over the years that these consumers really want to try national brands, but they want it to be localized, and they want the owners of these restaurants to know that it’s there, like community restaurants,” Scanlan said.
He has 35 years of experience working in the restaurant industry. Scanlan led Blue Pacific Management, which sold its 30-unit Hawaii and Guam markets of Jack in the Box last year to PARS Group. Around the same time, he also sold his 30 Jamba stores.
Scanlan got involved with franchising in the early 90s when he was an executive at PepsiCo, which bought KFC around then. It was then that he grew interested in franchising, rather than the corporate side of things. Soon after, he joined a franchisee in Los Angeles.
“That kind of launched my fast food, QSR career and appetite—no pun intended—and I learned from the ground up what it was like to run a store and then run multiple stores,” he said.
Now, Scanlan is pursuing new opportunities with Blue Pacific Brands. The company doesn’t have any brands in its portfolio yet, but the Blue Pacific team is seeking out new acquisition and development opportunities, he said. The team includes his business partner, Eddie Park.
“When you buy an existing brand, you have existing revenues and employees, et cetera, et cetera,” Scanlan said. “When you launch a new brand, especially in Hawaii, it can take anywhere from 12 to 18 months to open the first site. So, our strategy is to do both.”
Blue Pacific Brands expects to have news at the end of this year or early next year. Scanlan is looking at “multiple opportunities.”
“We have a team, we have infrastructure, we have offices, we have context,” he said. “It shouldn’t take us long to launch.”