EPIPHANY Café [franchise group] was born from a love of coffee and donuts. Through passion, and much dedication, Epiphany Café quickly became the gourmet donut café in Hamilton, before expanding across New Zealand through its Regional Master Franchisees, serving an eclectic selection of artisanal donuts, coffee, and more. Epiphany has now expanded its wholesale business of donuts, coffee and other bakery products nationwide through the other subsidiaries of SFIO: Ardent Bakers and Gorgeous Coffee Co.
The story of Epiphany started a few years ago when Jeths Lacson and Mark Epifanio, engineers and friends, couldn’t find the particular quality of fresh pillow-soft donuts in New Zealand that they’d enjoyed on their respective travel and work experiences overseas. They decided to bake their own in Hamilton and it took about 6 months to get the right mix. There were lots of trials, a fair few errors, and eventually, the Epiphany Cafe donut was perfect. The “moment of sudden revelation’” came to Jeths and Mark. Hence, they decided to take on the challenge of becoming NZ’s donut Cafe brand. The first Epiphany cafe franchise was opened in the city’s Casabella Lane in February 2016. The company has a growing string of cafes and kiosks across several regions of New Zealand.
To pursue the global expansion of Epiphany Cafe, Epiphany joined SFIO as a conglomerate company in 2021. SFIO is an asset management company and is a conglomerate of franchising, food manufacturing, and distribution, coffee business, property development, as well as technology and software development in New Zealand, Australia and the Philippines. The strong coalition of companies has been established within the group to support the overall growth using innovative technology and disruptive business models. The synergistic companies will enable SFIO to expand its asset base through mergers, strategic acquisitions, investments, and partnerships with companies that would increase the market value of SFIO, thus providing more value to its shareholders. SFIO is aiming to support and enable the strategic expansion and growth of the Epiphany brand globally as part of the initial stage of the expansion roadmap as the Conglomerate’s pilot project.
To enable and support the hyper growth expansion plan of the Epiphany brand, SFIO has strategically acquired companies with capabilities and proven expertise. These companies have been grouped into four strategic business divisions including the Franchise Division.
Manufacturing Division
Ardent Bakers is an MPI (Ministry for Primary Industries) approved centralized factory and warehouse located in Hamilton, New Zealand. It supplies frozen donuts, muffins, scones, and cakes to the Epiphany Franchise Group. Ardent Bakers also supplies wholesale products to multi-store retail brands such as BP, Caltex, Mobil, GAS, Jayen Foods Concepts, Circle-K, Metromart, Classic Bake House, and other hospitality businesses i.e., cafes, hotels, restaurants.
SFIO recently acquired Big Lou’s Donuts (BLD) to support the manufacturing division. BLD is a successful Australian company headquartered in Melbourne that specializes in producing a wide range of commercial donuts for retail and wholesale supermarkets across Australia. The state-of-the-art donut factory of BLD is capable of producing more than 9,000 donuts per hour. The facility will be utilized by SFIO to produce Epiphany Café’s pillow-soft donuts as part of its expansion plan in Australia.
Coffee Division
Gorgeous Coffee Co. (GCC) is part of SFIO’s coffee division. GCC is the coffee supplier of Epiphany franchise and license groups. GCC is also a wholesale coffee roaster and distributor in New Zealand and Australia. GCC developed the unique Epiphany Café coffee blend which is 100% organic and Fair Trade certified. GCC has recently developed its 5-in-1 instant coffee made from organic ingredients, namely NZ Manuka honey, Barley grass powder, Stevia, Coconut milk powder and coffee. The instant coffee range of GCC, which is 99% sugar free, will be exported and distributed internationally by partners and through e-commerce platforms (i.e., Amazon). Being an independent company, Gorgeous Coffee Co. will also supply its standard coffee blend (whole beans) to both internal partners within SFIO and external clients such as local cafés. Gorgeous Coffee Co. also has the capabilities to develop bespoke coffee blends for both internal and external customers.
Property and Development Division
The Property and Development Division of SFIO is in charge of standardization and development of design and construction of the infrastructure within the SFIO group including Epiphany Franchise group. This division will also manage the site acquisition and leasing for the franchise groups within SFIO.
In addition, SFIO has also successfully acquired (70%) the MLV Group – a well-established accounting firm in Australia serving more than 5,000 clients which has seen a growth rate of more than 30% annually due to its reliable, professional, and trustworthy services. MLV Group will also provide accounting and financial services to manage and monitor the financial performance of the SFIO subsidiaries
Meanwhile, SFIO’s ‘The Global Academy’ – a masterclass and business coaching arm of the company – has been established, which will lead the strategic business education roadshows of SFIO by conducting informative sessions to highlight the entrepreneurial mindset about investing and owning a business.
SFIO’s ‘The Global Academy’ (Training Hub for Entrepreneurship) is a strategic learning provider of masterclasses and workshops – available both online and offline. It aims to educate, equip, and empower its business partners, shareholders and potential investors to have entrepreneurial and business leadership mindsets, mastery, management and mentorship programs. The core of ‘The Global Academy’ is to customize strategic learning programs to develop the most important resource of an organization – the people.
We have more strategic acquisition plans that are underway. We are now also opening the application for franchising of Epiphany Café in the U.S. and pre-selling of real estate units in the Philippines. BE PART of our STORY, contact us now at admin@sfio.co.nz.
Visit our website (http://www.starfleetinnotech.com) to find out more. (Advertising Supplement)
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