Jamaican-owned fast food chain expands into Canada

Jamaican-owned fast food chain expands into Canada

(Daren (left) and Haywood Hawthorne (right) with their late father, Lowell, founder of Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery and Grill)

New York , USA — Eight months after the death of its founder, Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery and Grill has expanded its operations into the Canadian market, opening two stores in the greater Toronto, Ontario, area, home to a large number of Jamaican and other Caribbean nationals.

“We are looking to expand aggressively into the Canadian market as we know that the Caribbean community is deep-rooted throughout that country,” Steven Clarke, Golden Krust’s director of marketing and public relations told the Jamaica Observer in an interview last week.

“We are confident that our products will go over well, even with the non-Caribbean community in Canada,” said Clarke, noting that the expansion into Canada was part of the company’s strategic plans to open 11 new stores by the end of the current fiscal year.

Clarke said that previously announced plans to venture into the United Kingdom market to target the large number of Jamaican and Caribbean nationals there had not been shelved, but that there was “no immediate timetable for when this will be done”.

The company’s expansion into the Canadian market marks the second such outside of the United States, as it previously entered the Middle East under a two-year deal in 2014.

In the wake of the passing of President and CEO Lowell Hawthorne, the management of the company has undergone a restructuring, with Daren Hawthorne now the new president for the restaurant side of the business while Haywood Hawthorne heads up retail operations,

Clarke said that Al Novas, who has been with the company for several years and a long-standing board member with much business experience, is now the company’s CEO.

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