The reason they can't make money as company owned stores is that staff are not motivated. How committed would you be to growing sales and providing a great personal service on £5 an hour? That's where the problem lies. Having managers to go round to all these stores, check on their performance is also cost prohibitive. You get a guy in their that is motivated, gets an instant boost in sales from the conversion to deli and earns in relation to sales. That's why most franchises do better than company owned stores in most franchises - motivation. It's why Caffe Nero and Costa Coffee are moving to franchising to grow the business and the profits.