Leon co-founder and owner John Vincent has expressed concern over the country’s political system, describing it as “adversarial and not constructive”.
Speaking with The Times, Vincent described his frustration that ministers could change job at any moment.
“I’ve worked with the government on the school food plan [and] in the Council for Sustainable Business. A minister would come along, be replaced. They’d be on holiday for a period, then there would be purdah [where] they can’t do anything because of the election.”
Vincent, who purchased healthy fast food chain Leon back from Asda in October, has also been calling for a review of what he sees as an ‘unsustainable tax burden on the sector”.
In December, he said: “If you look at the performance of Leon’s peers, you will see that everyone is facing challenges – companies are reporting significant losses due to working patterns and increasingly unsustainable taxes.
“Today for every pound we receive from the customer, around 36p goes to the government in tax, and about 2p ends up in the hands of the company. It’s why most players are reporting big losses,” he explained.
It comes as Leon has been undergoing a turnaround under Vincent’s ownership, as he has vowed to bring the food-to-go chain back to its roots.
This includes the relaunch of menu items such as the Fish Finger Wrap and Grilled Chicken Rice Boxes that “helped build the reputation of the brand in the first place”. Former members of the management team have also returned, including Chris Burford as CFO and Nick Scovell as operations director.
Leon, which appointed administrators in December to “lay out options for the future of the company”, unveiled plans last week to exit administration. During the past four months, the business has closed 23 company-owned restaurants, leaving Leon with a total of 43 sites.
To secure the finances of the group, Vincent will also invest a further £2.5m in loans into the business.
He described it as a “painful but necessary restructuring to secure the company’s future”, adding that Leon would emerge as a “smaller but stronger business”.
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