Domino's Pizza has its sights set on three new branches in Kent as a bumper start to the year left it intent on opening 200 more takeaways across the country.

Lockdown restrictions saw a boost in sales, with its highest ever sales week recorded over the new year period and pre-tax profits in the 12 months to December 27 jumping to £56.4 million from £18.6m.

The franchise-based business is looking for property in Hoo, Wincheap and St Dunstan's Street in Canterbury.

Domino's has been eyeing up the former NatWest bank in St Dunstan's Street since it closed in 2014.

It also plans to expand its drive-thru collections offering to 450 restaurants across the country which are located next to or near car parks.

The chain's chief executive said he had no concerns over the growing influence from soon-to-float Deliveroo.

Bosses added they hope to use the momentum gained during the pandemic to target more customers in future, including returning office workers.

A further 200 stores are set to open “in the medium term” and a resetting of relations with franchisees is under way, after years of acrimony between the business and its operators.

The company added it spent £9m on coronavirus support for franchisees to update their stores and continue trading under restrictions and social distancing.

The franchisees, who have had years of fractious run-ins with the company, have been made “an attractive offer… in an attempt to reset” the relationship by the current management.

Chief executive Dominic Paul explained that there are always some tensions within a franchisee relationship but improvements have been swift.

He said: “They were frustrated because they didn’t think that Domino’s had a clear enough longer term strategic plan, and that some of the foundations for growth weren’t strong enough.

“We’ve worked really hard on coming up with a clear vision of strategy, which we’ve done, and we’ve built the building blocks to enable us to execute that strategy.”

The 200-store expansion will be with old and new franchisees and Mr Paul hopes it will help Domino’s hit sales of £1.6 billion to £1.9 billion over the medium term.

One aspect to boost sales includes “turbo-charging” the company’s collection business, although the current Covid-19 restrictions have seen collections slump- it is currently only at 60% of the levels seen in 2019.

This includes targeting office workers and offering a drive-thru collection with 450 stores offering the service by June.

Mr Paul explained: “We’re doing it in stores that have a car park or are very near a car park. You order on the app. You drive to the store and then someone will deliver the pizza to your car.”

He added now was the right time to increase and expand the business and said he had no concerns with the rise of online delivery apps, including Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

Asked whether he was worried about the upcoming stock market listing of Deliveroo, he said the competition actually helped because it increased the overall number of households using deliveries.

He said: “If we were running a poor operation for example, or we had a weak brand, I would be very concerned about the aggregators, but we run a great operation, we’ve got an incredibly strong brand, and we continue to innovate our product, which says to me, we just have an opportunity to take advantage of the growing delivery market.”

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