Growth. It's the key for any successful franchise system, however simply growing in order to grow can lead to long-term problems. In the kickoff issue for 2017, Franchise Times looked at the smartest growing franchise brands, including Wisconsin-based rapidly growing Toppers Pizza.

The brand has seen impressive growth in recent years, with more than 70 locations open across the U.S. and a pipeline including multi-unit operators that will help the brand's expansion into new states. At its core, the brand has a brash culture that's served as a motivation for growth.

“Our brand voice is the cocky young person, kind of dismiss the big guys and talk smack,” Scott Gittrich, founder and president of Toppers, told Franchise Times. However, the brand has also invested heavily in online ordering (with 42 percent of orders coming through online) but is looking even further down the road.

“We look out 10 to 15 years and say you know, there’s going to be self-driving cars, there’s going to be automation in kitchens where robots are making pizzas, customers are going to be ordering in kiosks in restaurants. Those kinds of things are not a question of if, they’re a question of when and who’s going to adopt those things,” Gittrich told Franchise Times.

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