Would you like to visit a Fourth regional site closer to you?
1% reduction in labour costs
6% increase in like-for-like sales
Increase sales per labour hour
“Implementing this approach from Fourth has saved the team so much time but has also ensured our guests are getting a better experience because we know we have the right staffing levels at the right time in each of our 150 stores. It’s proven to be a real win-win.
— Darren Traynor, Operations Director, Chopstix Group
The Chopstix Group is the largest Asian-Inspired quick service restaurant chain in Europe, renowned for its bold Chinese flavours the brand has grown rapidly over the last few years, thanks to a unique food proposition, great guest experience and ever improving operational processes.
Chopstix boasts 150 sites globally through both company owned and operated stores and managed via fantastic franchise partners. To support further expansion in the UK and across Continental Europe, Chopstix has taken steps to optimise its operations even further: upgrading to Fourth’s Revenue Based Scheduling system has been viewed as a ‘game changer’ in supporting the business on this journey.
Locations: 75+ | Employees: 850+
As its UK business grew to 75 locations, Chopstix began to face challenges that the leadership team were keen to address before embarking on the next stage of growth. The company’s manual forecasting methods were imprecise, inefficient and labour-intensive, taking up a full day each week for the operations team to estimate staffing needs. Streamlining their workforce management processes would allow the in-store teams to focus on their core priorities: producing delicious food and delivering an unmatched guest experience.
Given the limitations of the team’s current labour forecasting methods, Chopstix took the decision to upgrade their platform from basic Scheduling to the Revenue Based Scheduling (RBS). After reviewing the challenges faced by the operations team, and the needs of the business moving forward, with Fourth’s Productivity Consulting team, Chopstix identified Fourth’s AI-driven Labour Optimisation approach as the ideal first step into demand scheduling.
Chopstix partnered Fourth’s Productivity Consulting team to implement AI-driven Labour Optimisation, leveraging Fourth Analytics to produce labour models based on performance benchmarking.
Fourth’s team worked closely with Chopstix to ensure, through regular reviews and refinements, that the system was tailored to both their commercial and operational needs. Importantly, the new features, including AI Forecasting, empowered managers to trust the data, reducing guesswork and improving decision-making across the business.
As with any system change, there are challenges along the way to full implementation. One such challenge, Darren noted, was building buy-in from staff members. Even if existing technology and process used in a business are outdated, switching to something new takes time to learn and understand. To help with the transition, Darren appointed a specific Project Manager to oversee the implementation. Assigning dedicated, internal resources allowed Fourth to bring the Chopstix team along on the journey, to ensure that all managers were not only comfortable with the new system but understood how it made their lives easier.
By scheduling the right people at the right time using Fourth, Chopstix has delivered:
Fourth’s Labor Optimisation package provided an affordable and accessible platform for Chopstix to begin improving labour efficiency and has laid a solid foundation for further sustainable growth.
Save time, reduce costs, and increase profitability with Fourth’s intelligent solutions.