How BurgerFi Captured Two Coveted and Elusive Demos

A staple of American dining for decades, the hamburger restaurant is represented in just about every corner of the foodservice industry. Despite that near ubiquity, there are a few key demographics that the segment has struggled to capture. Chief among those demographics are women and millennials. By effectively appealing to both groups, BurgerFi has carved out an outsized market share that has supported the franchise’s rapid growth from one location in Florida to more than 100 across the country in just six years.

According to BurgerFi’s director of marketing, Scott Johnson, who has over 25 years of experience in the industry, the brand did not set out to capture a specifically female or millennial demographic; it was the BurgerFi’s forward-thinking idea of what a burger restaurant should look like that organically drew those consumers.

“We are for burger lovers,” Johnson said. “That’s our target demographic. We are about perfect, uncompromised burgers. Our innovation is treating the burger — and eating out in general — as something to celebrate, not settle on. And that’s something that we’ve found appeals to the younger, discerning customer base.”

Target demographic focus

That makes BurgerFi a uniquely future-oriented opportunity in an industry that is largely struggling to find a foothold with a new generation of consumers.

“A lot of legacy brands are seeing their core demos getting older and dining out less, and they are struggling to make inroads with millennials,” Johnson said. “We’ve found that our concept is extremely attractive to teens and young families, and we skew female, which is very rare and very valuable in this industry.”

A large part of BurgerFi’s wide-ranging, more modern appeal is the brand’s positioning of their product as a “well-earned reward,” a notion Johnson attributes initially to another famous growth brand that has managed to capture a wide range of demographics.

“Starbucks was one of the first brands to sell their product as a small, everyday reward, and BurgerFi plays in the same mindset,” he said. “Consumers today want balance. They are conscious of what they are eating, but they want to treat themselves occasionally. Our customers are active and they generally eat healthy, and when they want a burger, they want the best and not something that’s going to make them feel like they just threw out a week’s worth of exercise and healthy eating.”

High quality ingredients

To that end, BurgerFi sources the best available products and ingredients for all of its menu offerings, including “never ever” steroid- and antibiotic-free Black Angus beef that qualifies as the top one percent of beef certified by the USDA.

“By using only the top one percent of beef, we established a principle that applies to all aspects of our operation,” Johnson said. “With everything we do, we aim to be in that top one percentile.”

BurgerFi has also made a name for itself by putting equal care into its many vegetarian and vegan options. The franchise is the first national chain to offer the much-lauded Beyond Burger, which looks, tastes and even cooks like a real burger but is 100 percent plant-based and gluten-free, and they also offer their own veggie-burger creation, the VegeFi Burger, which Johnson said has been a surprise hit among skeptical burger lovers.

“We bring in prospective franchisees to try our products frequently, and when we offer the VegeFi Burger, meat-eaters usually aren’t very excited to try it, but when they do, they are blown away,” he said.

The VegeFi Burger has become such a hit that BurgerFi created the Conflicted Burger, a double-burger that uses both an Angus beef patty and a veggie patty. “Our customers wanted both, so we created a solution,” Johnson said.

Sales and growth metrics

BurgerFi’s mission to bring the best burger experience to customers of every dietary preference has given the brand a distinct edge in a segment that has long been prohibitive to many customers, including those who are even vaguely health conscious. As a result, Johnson says the franchise has seen enormous growth in recent years.

“The consumer response is evident in all of our metrics,” Johnson said. “We are outpacing the industry in revenue, traffic, system growth and sales growth. Our comparative sales trend is up nearly 8 percent over the past eight months, while the industry average has remained flat.”

As BurgerFi’s wide consumer appeal continues to fuel rapid growth, Johnson says the franchise remains focused on its core mission: providing the best burger for burger lovers.

“We developed a loyal customer base early on by taking the concepts of burgers and natural ingredients seriously, and by providing the best possible experience,” Johnson said. “As we grow, we’re taking the same approach, and we’re thrilled to see how quickly the concept is catching on in each new market we enter.”