Ireland’s fastest growing café franchise opened an office in Glasgow’s south side in January this year with ambitious expansion plans for cafes in every major Scottish city and town.

Renowned in Ireland for its fresh healthy food, fabulous coffee and excellent service and with 30 café outlets currently established and more opening throughout Ireland, it is ready to launch its ‘more than a café’ business model in Scotland.

Former Rangers Retail Operations Director and District Manager with Disney Gerry Carey has partnered with John Belardo a senior IT project manager to develop the brand country-wide. Carey will front the operation in Scotland and has a major franchise recruitment drive already underway.

The streat’s success in Ireland is founded upon their ‘more than a café’ approach. Franchisees have developed their businesses within the streat cafes and have grown their business beyond the traditional shopfront by creating substantial outside catering and food delivery elements. The ‘streatonwheels’ add on franchise option brings fresh food to events, commercial properties and out of town areas.

The food, described as ‘food with thought’ is always fresh and healthy from breakfast to bedtime. Deli style hand crafted sandwiches, salads and wraps, juice and smoothies – food for the whole family throughout the whole day. Contact has already been made with Scottish suppliers to maintain the streat’s commitment to fresh ingredients.

Having sampled beans from 23 estates the streat have created their own unique blend of coffee providing a distinctive taste. Coffee excellence is a major part of the team training programme. Several of the streat’s team members have taken part in the UK Barista championships.

The main building block of the streat’s success has been its commitment to investment in training. This passion for excellence has resulted in the streat being the only franchisor ever to be awarded the prestigious UK National Training Award. They have also received several regional and national awards for quality of training.

Carey said: “the streat is an exciting offer to the Scottish public. Our due diligence process uncovered a gem of a business with a firm ethos in first class service through delicious fresh food and excellent training.

“Franchising was recently described in The House Of Commons as ‘growing at twice the rate of the UK economy’, so by investing in this opportunity we will not only bring a vibrant new concept to Scotland, we will also help ambitious people become successful, independent business owners”.

Michael McQuillan, founder of the streat, said ‘ We are delighted to have Gerry and John on board the streat team and we have every confidence that their extensive experience and skills will result in the recruitment and support of a successful network of streat franchisees in Scotland. We look forward to working with them to help them achieve their goals’.

Carey’s experience in the retail industry with Rangers and Disney is seen as a key factor in establishing the brand in Scotland and ensuring the award winning company maintains its recognised standards of service.