Papa Murphy’s pairs with Pinkberry in three co-brand franchise deals

Papa Murphy’s is putting pizza and frozen yogurt under one roof in a franchise model built around shared space, labor and operating costs.

On October 7 the company announced three franchise agreements for locations combining Papa Murphy’s and Pinkberry in the same store. The model pairs Papa Murphy’s take-and-bake pizza with Pinkberry frozen yogurt, and the company describes it as leveraging shared real estate, labor and operational efficiencies to give franchisees multiple revenue streams.

That makes it more interesting than a standard development announcement. The operating question is whether two concepts can produce more revenue from the same location without adding proportionally more complexity.

Why co-branding matters for operators

Real estate is one of the largest fixed costs in many franchise businesses. If the same footprint can serve two complementary demand occasions, the asset works harder for the same rent. There may also be room to share employees, utilities, front-of-house infrastructure and management.

But co-branding creates its own costs. Two concepts can mean more SKUs, more training, more equipment, more food-safety processes and a more complicated customer experience.

That means a co-brand cannot be judged on additional sales alone. The useful figure is incremental profit after the additional operating complexity is paid for.

What to watch

Four numbers would make this experiment worth following.

Sales per square foot. Does adding Pinkberry materially improve the productivity of the location, or just move revenue around inside it?

Labor hours. Can the two brands genuinely share staff, or does the second concept create its own staffing requirement?

Ticket behaviour. How many Papa Murphy’s customers also buy Pinkberry, and does the combined ticket justify the second line?

Operational complexity. Does the additional revenue cover the extra inventory, equipment and training?

For operators sitting on expensive real estate, co-branding looks attractive quickly. The economics only work if the second brand makes the existing location more productive rather than simply making it harder to run.