A new universal business solution from Kobas and Aures is to drive expansion at the healthy fast-food brand, Pita Pit

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: A new universal business solution from Kobas and Aures is to drive expansion at the healthy fast-food brand, Pita Pit.

Pita Pit and its UK franchisees have invested in new cloud-based technology from specialist developer Kobas to deliver global trading visibility and support growth plans. Sango touchscreen EPoS terminals from Aures Technologies have been retained to run the new solution.

Specialist cloud-based hospitality management system developer Kobas has revealed it has secured the business of healthy fast-casual business Pita Pit, which is at the beginning of a significant growth curve in the UK to match that it has generated in the US and Canada.

Pita Pit has just marked twenty years since it launched its fresh, healthy alternative to traditional high-fat, high-carb', high-calorie fast foods. Rapid growth in its native Canada, then in the US, was followed by entry to the UK market as a franchised operation.

Over recent months, James O'Sullivan, founder and CEO of Kobas, and his team have worked with Pita Pit's international franchise holder and one of its three UK franchisees. The retailer was already using Sangos from AURES as its point-of-sale hardware but was running an alternative EPoS solution.

A chance encounter between Kobas and Pita Pit resulted in the provider securing a contract to roll out a complete hospitality management system including EPoS to the six Pita Pit stores located within the M25.

Enthuses O'Sullivan: "We walked into a Pita Pit store late last summer and explained how different we are from other suppliers. Six weeks later we had a deal! We are now in six new stores and will roll out in a further four in the coming months."

He explains why Pita Pit was drawn to Kobas. "Importantly for Pita Pit, given that it's growing a business with tens if not hundreds of stores in different geographies and needs complete real-time trading visibility and control, the Kobas solution is browser-accessed and cloud-based. This makes it universally available - at any time, from any device, anywhere in the world."

"We don't sell ourselves as an EPoS company; we're a web technologies company with a hospitality management product that goes way beyond EPoS," continues James O'Sullivan. "We manage stock ordering and delivery, plus every aspect of staff operations from recruitment and induction to training and time & attendance. We also drive the relationship between our clients and their customers, not to mention restaurant reservations; so we can offer a large and rich function set."

"As for EPoS hardware, Pita Pit was already using Sango terminals from AURES Technologies. The Sangos have been very reliable and are very striking to look at, so Pita Pit was keen to keep them to run our new software." The retailer uses Sangos in a red colour-way to match its livery and runs them in conjunction with AURES ODP 333 thermal printers, black at the point-of-sale and white in the kitchens.

Adds O'Sullivan: "Pita Pit's Canada-based international franchise director likes the way Kobas gives her trading data for all her UK operations. All data is locked down for different tiers of access. That means a single system can run across all franchisees, centralising data for head office at the same time as allowing each franchisee and manager to see just their own data."

The retailer's UK plans include major cities such as Leeds and Manchester. London will continue to see very fast growth with a total of 80 stores planned within the next 4 years.

James O'Sullivan concludes: "Kobas is able to use technologies that weren't around 5 years ago, and deliver them at an affordable price-point. To have the breadth of functionality that we provide, you would normally need lots of specialist apps' but with Kobas you get it all for a single fee. Because we do all our own development, we can make changes cost-effectively too. Being web-based, we can talk to anyone and share data - we don't require Kobas to be the source or the destination, just a conduit through which data can flow to make for a better business."