Business View - February 2015 85
or five years,” he said. “It just continues and we just
continue to get bigger and bigger.”
Another understatement.
The operation passed the 500-location threshold in
mid-December and entered 2015 with 502 locations,
representing a mix of single-unit and multiple-unit
franchisee ownership agreements. The corporate ap-
paratus has no owned units, though Meigs – who’s
now the company’s president and CEO – still operates
his own franchise in the territory local to the corporate
office in Bryn Mawr.
The domestic spread of service stretches nationwide
and includes “a predominant number” of states, Rit-
terling said, and the operation has also swelled in-
ternationally to include franchises in Canada, Brazil,
South Korea, and, most recently as of late 2014, Mex-
ico. Other areas on the agenda for far-flung franchise
expansion include Asia, Australia, Latin America and
the United Kingdom.
Territories are typically based on a population of
200,000 or more people, a pool he said will typically
include both the requisite number of potential care-
givers and care-recipients. The average annual reve-
nue of a location is slightly upwards of $1 million, and
operations of that size typically occupy from 1,000 to
1,500 square feet of office space and employ as many
as five office workers in addition to the larger comple-
ment of care-givers.
Each franchised location is owned and operated by
the franchisee utilizing a system that includes a stan-
dardized six-day training class in Philadelphia, Ritter-
FRANCHISE
