After growing Smashburger to more than 350 units, David Biederman Utilizes Strong Pedigree to Guide Toppers’ Growth Momentum
Toppers Pizza has celebrated a lot of important milestones lately. So far in 2016, the brand has added four new locations to its rapidly growing franchise system and signed three additional multi-unit development franchise deals that will ultimately open up 41 new locations for business. Six of those units will be in North Carolina, 13 will be in Colorado and Wyoming and 22 will be located in Virginia and Maryland.
Now, as Toppers continues to embark on its quest to gain the upper hand in a competitive industry, the brand is proud to announce the recent hire of David Biederman as chief development officer. As a key member of the leadership team, Biederman’s job is to spearhead the brand’s continued growth in both new and untapped territories throughout the country.
“The more I learned about Toppers and the more I spoke with the brand’s founder and CEO, Scott Gittrich, the more excited I became to be a part of this brand. Toppers has the maturity and experience of a legacy brand with the fresh attitude and spirit of a start-up. The quality and sizing of the products make us relevant for any occasion and set us apart from all competitors in the space. Our next generation technology platform will rival the leaders in not just the pizza and restaurant space, but all sectors of e-commerce. Finally, the way we operate our restaurants is proof that a commitment to strong values leads to equally strong profit.”
A seasoned restaurant veteran, Biederman brings with him decades of experience. Most recently, he served as Chief Development Officer for Smashburger. While he was at Smashburger, he helped the brand grow to more than 350 locations in less than 9 years, working in both corporate and franchisee development. Prior to Smashburger, Biederman held leadership roles in both operations and innovation at Quiznos. At McDonalds, as a Senior Director of New Concept Development, Biederman helped develop, build and operate new concept restaurants for the venerable chain.
Now, Biederman is hoping to bring that same experience with emerging brands to grow the next big concept in both pizza and franchising—Toppers.
“Our goal is to continue to show more and more pizza fanatics that they don’t have to settle for mediocre pizza. But in order to do so, we need to keep upping our game so that we’re better than the big chains in every way. It’s a never-ending process of growing and evolving, and that applies to the backbone of Toppers’ system, too—our franchise development process,” said Scott Gittrich, founder and president of Toppers Pizza. “We’re excited to bring David and his expertise in driving brand growth to the Toppers team. Our motivating force has always been to provide a better pizza, quicker delivery and unmatched customer service. Now, we’re taking a major step forward as a brand by focusing more of our efforts on adopting a meaningful development strategy.”
Biederman sees a lot of similarities between his work at Smashburger and his new role with Toppers. He notes that both are brands in a saturated segment – and both are brands innovating, recreating and redefining their respective segments in a revolutionary way. Biederman is eager to take what he learned while driving Smashburger to national success and apply it to Toppers.
“Toppers is backed by an impressive 25-year history, strong leadership and a strong following of customers. This is a next-generation company suited for next-generation franchisees,” Biederman said. “This is just the beginning for Toppers, and I’m eager to position this unparalleled opportunity in front of the right people to help propel the brand to a national presence.”
Capitalizing on the booming better pizza category and fueled by the passion of Founder & President Scott Gittrich and a team of experienced industry veterans, Toppers Pizza has formulated the perfect recipe to appeal to both pizza enthusiasts and savvy investors. Headquartered in Wisconsin, Toppers is one of the fastest growing better-pizza chains in the United States. The brand has doubled in size over the last three years and completely sold out three states based on growth spurred by both existing franchisees and established multi-unit operators. Now with restaurants in 13 states and with territories immediately available across the country, Toppers is on its way to becoming a nationwide brand. Toppers is committed to quality and consistency throughout the system, and plans to maintain corporate ownership of 25 percent of all locations while the brand expands to continuously improve on best practices and product development. Toppers fanatics love the brand’s fresh, handmade and customizable pizza baked in about 360 seconds and delivered extremely fast, with more than a million combinations of fresh, high quality toppings, and the brand’s signature line of flavored Topperstix and baked Buffalo wings. In 2014, Entrepreneur Magazine ranked Toppers as one of the top 500 franchises in the U.S and in 2016, QSR Magazine listed the company as one of the year’s Best Franchise Deals. For more information on how to join the rapidly growing Toppers family and for a sneak peek into the Toppers experience, visit http://www.toppersfranchise.com.
