Founded in Taiwan in 2006 and now headquartered in the United Kingdom, Gong cha is one of the world's fastest-growing tea brands. Based on skills and expertise honed over more than two decades, Gong cha is at the cutting edge of the global tea market, serving up high-quality, freshly brewed, hand-crafted beverages made with premium ingredients at over 2,100 locations in more than 28 markets.
Product innovation and provenance is central to the Gong cha brand. Only ever using the very best whole leaf tea, Gong cha offers hundreds of beverage combinations which meet a variety of consumer tastes, all at great value. Gong cha's globally relevant and highly scalable offer has been recognised by countless industry awards. In 2025, the brand was named the Best Food & Drink Franchise for Drinks at the Global Franchise Awards. The Group is currently executing an ambitious global expansion strategy.
This will see the brand both launch into new markets – particularly within Europe - for the first time and expand its footprint in existing markets.
Founder's Journey & Franchise Success
Gen Woodford is the co-founder of The Seasons Art Class, the UK's largest part-time art class franchise with over 130 branches nationwide. Her journey began not in business school, but in her beauty salon - working closely with people day in and day out, learning how to listen, anticipate needs, and deliver a 5 star experience that left people feeling cared for. These values became central to the brand she helped build.
The business idea took shape when Gen and her late partner, Mike, returned to the UK after the recession, having lost their previous venture. A chance encounter with a struggling art shop owner led Mike to suggest running local art classes to help the art shop stay open. Gen got to work researching the market, identifying a gap for structured, friendly art classes aimed at beginners and returners in a unique format. Within six months, their first class launched in Rustington and it sold out immediately.
What followed was a highly intentional rollout. Gen recorded every detail of what worked - from creating weekly handouts to documenting tricky customer scenarios, eventually developing a franchise-ready system. After testing across nine locations, the manual she had written evolved into the blueprint for a business now run by dozens of franchise owners.
Today, Gen continues to lead the development of Seasons Art Class, ensuring it remains both human-centred and professionally robust. With its distinctive 14-week course structure, emphasis on student care, and proven profitability, Seasons offers aspiring entrepreneurs a business that's as fulfilling as it is financially sound.
Pacer is a unified and scalable project intelligence solution purpose-built for managing complex, repetitive projects for multi-location organizations.
Built by a team with over 50 years of hospitality experience, Pacer delivers best-in-class results for projects like location openings, franchisee onboardings, global brand initiatives, and software implementations.
Users can access aggregated dashboards, reports, and reminders to measure ROI and ensure every team completes the project consistently and on time.
L'Express Franchise is Europe's leading platform connecting thousands of entrepreneurs with the franchise industry. A genuine digital alternative, it's revolutionizing the way franchisors recruit their future partners — offering continuous, active exposure to millions of aspiring entrepreneurs (15 million monthly views).
L'Express Franchise maximizes every brand's chances of attracting the right candidates by enhancing its image through a trusted third party that speaks about it with credibility and style.
The numbers speak for themselves: two-thirds of Britons have considered starting their own business, and nine out of ten use social media. Let's reach future franchisees where they already are.
We're proud of our KPIs: 85% renewal rate among our clients, an average of 7 pre-qualified applications per month, and over 500 partner brands.
Founded in 1953, L'Express is one of France's most established and respected news magazines.
ERA Group is a global leader in cost optimization and supplier management, helping organizations enhance financial performance, strengthen operational resilience, and unlock long-term value. With more than 30 years of experience and operations in 60+ countries, ERA Group leverages deep category expertise, advanced data insight, and a proven methodology to deliver measurable, sustainable results for clients around the world.
ERA Group’s strength lies in its global network of highly experienced consultants—most of whom have held senior leadership roles across a wide range of industries. This collective expertise forms the foundation of ERA Group’s unique franchise model. Franchisees join an international community of more than 1,000 cost-management specialists, collaborating across borders to share knowledge, benchmarking data, and sector best practices. This structure enables franchisees to deliver exceptional value to clients while building profitable, independent consulting practices of their own.
ERA Group supports its franchise network through world-class training, ongoing professional development, cutting-edge spend analysis tools, and a strong brand recognized globally for quality and integrity. Clients benefit from ERA Group’s performance-based, No-Win/No-Fee approach, low-risk engagement model, and continuous post-implementation monitoring, ensuring that savings and improvements are both real and long-lasting.
Beyond cost optimization, ERA plays an important role in helping organizations navigate modern challenges—from supply chain resilience and digital transformation to ESG priorities and operational efficiency. By combining local expertise with global capability, ERA Group empowers both clients and franchisees to achieve sustainable growth.
With thousands of successful projects delivered worldwide, ERA Group remains committed to its mission: helping organizations do more with what they already have—while offering entrepreneurs a powerful pathway into high-value B2B consulting.
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