Growth Looks Slower, Until You See Who’s Building It

By Tam Goldsmith

A small US brand is expanding through multi-unit operators, and raising bigger questions about access, control, and the future shape of franchising.

The Big Biscuit is choosing fewer operators with larger commitments, raising a question about who franchising is really for now

A franchise deal used to start with one store. Now, in many cases, it starts with five.

The Big Biscuit, a regional breakfast brand in the US, is expanding by signing operators who can take on multiple locations from day one. Not because single-unit operators have disappeared, but because the model is changing around them. Growth is still happening. It just looks different when you follow who is actually doing the building.

A Different Kind of First Conversation: For many emerging brands, the first question is no longer “Do you want to own a store?” It is “How many can you open?”

That shift changes the type of operator that gets through the door. It filters for capital, experience, and the ability to manage complexity across locations. It also filters out a large part of the traditional franchise pipeline.

The Big Biscuit is not alone in this. It is just clearer about it.

What Multi-Unit Really Buys a Brand: On the surface, signing multi-unit operators looks like a growth strategy. In practice, it is a control strategy.

Fewer operators mean fewer variables. Training is more consistent. Execution is easier to monitor. Brand standards hold more tightly when one group is responsible for an entire market.

There is also a financial reality. Opening a restaurant today is more expensive and less forgiving. Operators who have already built teams, systems, and supplier relationships can move faster and make fewer costly mistakes.

For a smaller brand, that can be the difference between a market working or failing.

What Gets Left Behind: But this approach quietly changes access.

The traditional path into franchising, one store, prove the model, grow over time, is becoming harder to find in certain systems. If entry requires a multi-unit commitment, the barrier moves from operational ability to capital availability.

That raises a simple question: if the next phase of franchising is built on larger operators, where do new ones come from?

Growth That Doesn’t Announce Itself: When brands rely on multi-unit agreements, growth becomes less visible.

There are fewer announcements. Fewer new names entering the system. Instead, the same operators expand across territories, opening locations over time.

From the outside, it can look slower. Inside the system, it is often more controlled and, in many cases, more durable.

The risk does not disappear. It concentrates.

If one operator controls a large portion of a region, performance issues carry more weight. The brand trades diversification for consistency.

Why This Is Happening Now: This shift is not about preference. It is about conditions.

Build-out costs are higher. Labor is tighter. Margins leave less room for error. In that environment, franchisors are choosing operators who can absorb pressure across multiple locations, not just manage one.

That naturally leads to fewer, larger partnerships.

The Big Biscuit’s approach reflects that reality. It is not chasing the fastest expansion. It is choosing who expands with it.

What This Signals for the Industry: If this model continues, franchise networks will start to look different.

Fewer operators. Larger territories. More capital behind each deal.

That may improve consistency and performance. It may also narrow the pipeline of future operators and concentrate risk inside fewer hands.

The question is not whether this works in the short term. It is what it does to the structure of franchising over time.

What We Can Learn From This: Operators who want access to growth opportunities should focus on building the capacity to manage multiple locations, not just one. Franchisors need to balance control with long-term pipeline development, ensuring new operators can still enter the system. Investors should look at how concentrated a brand’s operator base is and what that means for risk. The next phase of franchising will depend not just on how fast brands grow, but on who is allowed to grow with them.