An appetite for AND PROJECT PARTNER
An appetite for AND
Tássia Pacini, Head of Procurement and Quality at ZAMP – formerly Burger King Brazil – discusses the company’s transformational journey in the past year while driving innovation and supply chain transformation across such a vast country.
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COVER STORY
n August 2022, after 10 years as Burger King Brazil, the company adopted the name ZAMP. The change came with the objective of presenting the company's new chapter, focusing on new experiences for the consumer and the advancement of digital transformations for employees and consumers. Here to talk more about the ZAMP’s journey to conquer and connect with new markets, flavours and consumers is Tássia Pacini, Head of Procurement and Quality at the company.
A journey of transformation
Tássia begins by highlighting how ZAMP is responsible for two major brands, Burger King and Popeye’s, with 1,000 restaurants across Brazil. But one of the biggest sources of pride for ZAMP is they operate 80 per cent of these restaurants, selling 15 million hamburgers per month.
“We are the biggest operator of brands in Brazil and we impact a lot of people here,” says Tássia. “I came here to be part of this big new moment for the company, to give more
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ZAMP Brazil is a renowned restaurant operator with a broad portfolio of authentic brands that deliver food diversity and customerfocused service provision.
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agency to the procurement and supply chain dynamics of ZAMP.
“We are very market focused, but in the past two years ZAMP placed more emphasis on developing and empowering a supply chain focus in our operations. My role here is to
oversee all aspects of our supply chain, procurement – direct and indirect – and quality control, research and development.”
Speaking to ZAMP’s transformational journey in the past 12 months, Tássia highlights the fundamental importance of
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digital transformation within its supply chain and operations.
“We are going very deep into digital transformation not only with technology but in innovation,” explains Tássia. “So as part of this journey, the company is accelerating at a
pace we’ve never seen before. And I can say that our digital transformation is not only from the inside out, but also from the outside in.
“We are very focused on having close contact with our clients but making our engagement even
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deeper and more meaningful. We are investing heavily in digital restaurants and ‘totems’ – digital displays that show rich information to our consumers, allowing them to have a better, more personalised experience in our restaurants, thereby improving our relationships with the guests.
“Alongside this, we are investing in systems like our loyalty club that we started two years ago. We were one of the pioneer companies in Brazil to have
this kind of service and now we have more than 12 million users in our loyalty club. Our huge membership base generates a terrific volume of information and we only want to increase that as part of our digital transformation.
“We also have to consider our entire environment, the ecosystem of information or touchpoints with our customers. Here our total network is 17 million users, including the twelve million people in our loyalty club.
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“As we have been embarking on our digital transformation journey, it has become even more important due to the implications of challenging economic conditions in recent years. But we were very confident we would recover and it heightened our focus on technology and digitalisation. We accelerated our digital transformation because we knew it would benefit our consumers but also benefit us as a company in terms of efficiency, cybersecurity and supply chain benefits.
“In particular we have seen fantastic progress within our logistics efficiency. In a country as large as Brazil, with so many restaurants spread out over such a huge area, it’s crucial to be efficient with our deliveries.
“We are also investing in automation to enhance our processes, increasing the speed and agility of our internal work but also how we engage with our customers.”
So how will ZAMP build on this momentum and what are its growth plans for 2023 and beyond?
Tássia answers that ZAMP will continue to focus on its digital transformation and dive even deeper into digitalisation. But the company also has ambitious plans to embed new technology into its stores and open more of them.
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“We accelerated our digital transformation because we knew it would benefit our consumers but also benefit us as a company in terms of efficiency”
“Our plan is to close 2023 with 100 restaurants transformed into entirely digital stores – which constitutes 10 per cent of our operations in Brazil,” says Tássia. “We also want to universalise the presence of self-service ‘totems’ in every single one of our restaurants. Another valuable investment we are making in technology focuses on better understanding the behaviour of our customers. We want to become even more innovative with what we can offer to our clients.
Finally, by the end of 2023, we aim to open 80 more restaurants to join the 1,000 we already operate.”
Societal role
Tássia thrives on the energy and innovation at ZAMP but she also celebrates how the company takes a threepillar approach to its environmental, societal and corporate governance (ESG) responsibilities.
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“Our plan is to close 2023 with 100 restaurants transformed into entirely digital stores – which constitutes 10 per cent of our operations in Brazil”
“We really believe in doing the right thing because at ZAMP we see it as our role in society because we impact the lives of many, many people”
Tássia Pacini, Head of Procurement and Quality at ZAMP
ZAMP’s three pillars all promote progressive approaches to ESG with core strategies related to people, food and the company’s ‘pegada’ – which translates to ‘footprint’ in English, but here means ZAMP’s way of doing things.
People
When it comes to people, Tássia explains how ZAMP champions equality and inclusivity.
“We are a very open-minded company and about half of our leadership team are females,” emphasises Tássia. “For Brazil, these are very strong numbers that reflect our diversity and commitment to equality. But even more than this, ZAMP is committed to promoting female empowerment and eliminating any form of restrictions in our selection or promotion processes. We are open to all kinds of diversity,
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without prejudice towards anyone regardless of their race, gender or socio-economic circumstances. We also host and promote awareness meetings for different groups of employees within the company, training and educating our people on issues ranging from maternity leave and communication strategies to empowerment.
“ZAMP is a wonderful place to work. The culture here means I feel like
I can be myself and I also feel totally supported and equal with my colleagues.”
Food
For the second pillar, food, ZAMP relishes its goal to offer its customers the most pleasurable experience possible.
But Tássia emphasises how the company extends its sense of
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accountability beyond enjoyable cuisine and promotes transparency, responsibility and inclusivity around its food.
For instance ZAMP includes certification of origins on its packaging and recycles 100 per cent of the oil used by its restaurants.
But Tássia is particularly proud of how ZAMP was the first fast food
“By 2025, we want to remove artificial ingredients from 100 per cent of our menus.”
The final piece of the puzzle for ensuring their food provides a pleasurable experience is ZAMP’s focus on reaching new consumers and markets by diversifying their offerings.
Here Tássia stresses the importance of business
“PlantPlus Foods were the first company we worked with to help us provide food for everyone and diversify our menu. We worked together to offer more vegetarian options and plant-based foods, culminating in the release of our first plant-based hamburger”
company in Brazil to pioneer a clean labelling programme.
“We started the clean labelling programme almost three years ago and since then we have eliminated 90 per cent of artificial ingredients from all our menus,” lauds Tássia. “It was a huge undertaking to find the right suppliers, develop ingredients, attract investment and execute extensive research programmes for the benefit of our customers.
partnerships and ZAMP’s work with PlantPlus Foods.
“PlantPlus Foods were the first company we worked with to help us provide food for everyone and diversify our menu,” says Tássia. “We worked together to offer more vegetarian options and plant-based foods, culminating in the release of our first plant-based hamburger.
“We weren’t used to making these kinds of products because in
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Brazil, compared to other countries, vegetarian or vegan diets aren’t as prevalent.
“But more and more people come to our restaurants with diverse dietary needs or preferences and we decided to develop our menu, production, marketing and innovation efforts to serve these customers and connect them to new flavours. We want everyone to feel welcome in our restaurants and part of that involved transforming what choice we can offer them.”
Pegada
ZAMP’s ‘pegada,’ or ‘way of doing things’ is the term used for the third pillar of the company’s approach to ESG.
Elaborating on the term, Tássia explains “In Brazil, ‘pegada’ is like our ‘footprint.’ This third pillar can cover things like having better energy efficiency in
our restaurants and using renewable sources of energy wherever possible. “Today we have about 80-90 percent of our energy from renewable sources because we have a partnership with five green power plants that generate electricity through solar or wind power.
“A lot of companies approach ESG with costsavings at the front of mind ahead of sustainability. But at ZAMP, we are proud to flip this on its head with our three pillars because our ESG endeavours put progress and sustainability before cost reductions or considerations.
“We really believe in doing the right thing because at ZAMP we see it as our role in society because we impact the lives of many, many people.”
For more information about ZAMP, visit their website zamp.com.br.
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Added Value
Cultural curiosity
Tássia embraces open-minded curiosity in her personal life and professional career, where she actively explores the experiences of different people and cultures to learn from them.
“I love to understand what motivates people and engages them. I find it fascinating to learn about different cultures, different countries, different ways of working and different ways of thinking. As I built my career I have lived and worked in several countries: France, Japan, USA and Sweden for instance. Every time I visit a new country I take notes so I can learn from my experience there.
“People make the world go around and it is important to me that I continually expand my horizons because it deeply interests me.
“One of my favourite books that grapples with our shared experience as humans is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.”
Events
Tássia is looking ahead to November with excitement, when she will be attending Brazil Supply Chain, Logistics and Procurement Summit 2023.
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zamp.com.br