The Queue Isn't the Business: What Yogiberry Should Remind Franchisees About Wakaberry

I've watched this pattern before, and I'm watching it again right now with Yogiberry.

The frozen yoghurt franchise landed in Durban a few weeks ago, and most days there's a queue outside the Durban North and Westville stores. Everyone assumes a line like that only points one way: up. I've run franchises. I've seen a queue exactly like this one turn into a franchisor's best sales pitch, and I've seen what tends to come after it. Not an explosion. A plateau, usually followed by a slow decline that's much harder to spot from inside the business than the queue outside it.

This isn't a case against Yogiberry specifically. I don't have its numbers, and I'm not making a call on the brand. It's a caution about signing up to franchise any concept while it's still riding its own launch, and it's written for the franchisee, not the franchisor, because the two want different things from the same growth. A franchisor's royalty rises with turnover across the whole network. A franchisee's income is whatever is left over after rent, wages and stock are paid, at one store.

A plateau, not an explosion

Flame-out is probably too dramatic a word for what usually happens to a hyped concept. Stores rarely blow up overnight. What happens instead is quieter: the early curiosity fades, the queue thins, and the numbers settle at a level well below the opening months, sometimes low enough that the store stops making sense.

The mistake is judging a business by its first six to eight weeks. Those weeks are full of people trying the product once out of curiosity, not people who've decided to come back weekly. From behind the counter the two crowds look identical. They aren't. I don't trust any trading pattern until a store has been open for six months, and for something seasonal like frozen yoghurt, I'd rather see it through a full year, including its first winter.

Wakaberry ran the exact same script

Wakaberry is the case I keep coming back to. It launched in Durban in 2011, and within three years it was the country's leading frozen yoghurt brand, trading in eight provinces (BusinessTech, September 2024). Famous Brands liked the momentum enough to buy 70% of the business in March 2014, reportedly for around R47 to R48 million (Moneyweb, July 2017; BusinessTech, September 2024).

The brand kept growing for a while after that deal, reaching 37 stores by February 2015, at almost exactly the point Famous Brands told the market that the initial rush had subsided noticeably (Moneyweb, July 2017). Then it turned. A R12 million impairment in the 2016 financial year. Ten stores closed in the 2017 financial year. Wakaberry lost about a third of its stores between February 2015 and the end of the 2017 financial year. The last store closed its doors in 2024.

Call it what it actually was: a business that took off fast, grew hard on the strength of that early success, and turned out not to be sustainable once the novelty wore off. Both things happened, in that order. That's the trap. A brand can be a genuine hit and a bad long-term bet at the same time.

If you already have a store and it's working

The temptation Yogiberry franchisees will feel soon, if they haven't already, is to grab a second site while the first one is still hot. I understand the instinct. If you wait, someone else might take the location you want. If you don't wait, you're committing real capital, often with a personal guarantee attached, to numbers pulled from a launch period that may never repeat itself in your second store's catchment.

There's no clean answer here, but I lean towards patience. Passing on a site costs you an option. A second store that doesn't work costs you money, and possibly more than money if the bank wants your house as security. If a franchisor genuinely wants you to succeed, it shouldn't have a problem giving you a right of first refusal on the sites you're eyeing, so you're not racing your own trading data to a decision.

Your growth and the franchisor's growth aren't the same thing

Here's the part that gets missed. A franchisor earns off the whole network's turnover. You earn off what's left at one store after costs. Those two numbers can move in opposite directions at the same time.

Say a franchisor opens a second store ten minutes from your first one. Total network turnover goes up, because there are more tills ringing. Your turnover can go down, because some of your regulars now go to the closer store instead. The franchisor's royalty income rises either way. Yours doesn't, because your rent and your wage bill don't fall just because fewer people are walking through your door.

Nobody needs to act in bad faith for this to happen. The franchisor is following its own incentives, and those incentives are volume, not your profit. Worth asking, before you sign anything, what the rollout plan looks like for your area over the next two or three years, and whether the agreement gives you any protection at all.

What I'd actually tell someone right now

If a friend asked me whether to buy into a hot new franchise before it's had a chance to plateau, I'd tell them to wait for the data, not the queue. Ask to see weekly sales from a comparable store's first six months, not just its opening month. Phone a few existing franchisees directly and ask what changed between month one and month six, not what the brochure says.

South African law gives you some of the tools to do this properly. A franchisor must give you a signed disclosure document at least 14 days before you sign, and it has to include the franchisor's financial projections (Consumer Protection Act, Regulation 3). That same regulation entitles you to contact the existing franchisees on the franchisor's list. Use both, properly, before the queue talks you into anything.

Yogiberry might be the exception. Plenty of franchises hold their early numbers and go on to build real, durable businesses. But I've watched this particular film before, and I know how it ends when the buyer skips the part where they check.

Frequently asked questions

How long should I wait before judging a new franchise's trading data?

At least six months, and ideally a full year if the product is seasonal, so the store trades through a full cycle of demand. The first six to eight weeks mostly reflect curiosity, not repeat custom, and from behind the counter the two crowds look identical.

What happened to Wakaberry, the South African frozen yoghurt franchise?

Wakaberry launched in Durban in 2011 and grew to 37 stores by February 2015. Famous Brands, which bought 70% of the business in 2014, wrote down R12 million against it in 2016 and closed 10 stores in 2017. The last Wakaberry store closed in 2024.

What must a South African franchisor disclose before I sign?

Under Regulation 3 of the Consumer Protection Act, a franchisor must give you a signed, dated disclosure document at least 14 days before you sign anything. It must include financial projections and growth figures, and it entitles you to contact current franchisees on the franchisor's list directly.