Top 10 Franchises On The Franchise 500 - Franchise Opportunities

Posted by franchisegroup on April 5th, 2021

A franchise is nothing, but the permission given to an individual or a group to carry out commercial business or non-business activities in the franchisees name or under their brand name. The franchise 500 is a point based ranking system where each franchise that is eligible to be ranked is scored out of 150 marks and then the franchises who had the highest cumulative scores were then ranked from 1 – 500. These firms then became the franchise 500. A global benchmark of the best franchises Opportunitie out there.

1. Dunkin

• Dunkin Donuts which is also commonly abbreviated as simply DD is a 24/7 coffee and baked foods store. Founded in 1950s it earned the No. 1 rank in the United States for consumer loyalty in the coffee category for a consecutive 13 years straight.

• Dunkin Donuts can be found in nearly 32 countries worldwide and serve over 70 varieties of donuts in every store along with coffee, bagels, cold drinks etc.

2. Taco Bell

• Started by a ex-marine, Glen Bell set up a hot dog stand in his hometown of San Bernardino, California, however he liked Tacos more than hotdogs and eventually shifted his focus from hotdogs to Taco, where he set up “Taco Tia” stands throughout the city. Soon in 1962, he sold brand to his partners and set up the first Taco Bell restaurant in Downey, California

• Taco Bell is run by the parent company: Yum! Brands Inc. Who also own franchise such as KFC and Pizza Hut.

3. McDonald’s

• Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald set up a small restaurant where they used 8 milkshake mixers at the same time to make drinks in bulk and cheaper than the competitors, Ray Croc a milkshake mixer salesman was intrigued by the brothers’ process and became their business partners. Eventually they set up the first McDonald’s in Des Moines, Illinois.

• There are nearly 37,855 McDonald’s outlets in the world and serve nearly 70 million customers daily, and they keep increasing with development. Economists also use their product the, Big Mac as an economic indicator of the country’s economy. It is known as the Big Mac Index.

4. Sonic – Drive In

• Sonic was started off as a Top Hat drive in restaurant by Troy Smith Sr in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Soon he joined hands with Charlie Pappe and began selling under the brand name, “Sonic Drive – In”

5. The UPS Store

• Founded in 1905 by Gerald Aul, Pat Senn and Robert Diaz in Carlsbad, California as an alternative to the United States Postal Service. They started off as Mailboxes, etc. and soon rebranded itself into The UPS Store in 2001, Although their franchises are located only in USA and Canada, they have grown into a multibillion-dollar company by diversifying into packaging, shipping, copying services and computer rentals.

• UPS currently operates in nearly 200 countries and has the world’s 9th largest airline company with 268 Jet aircrafts and 92000 package cars and nearly 7.9 million customers use UPS daily and UPS is capable of delivering to every address in North America and Europe.

• UPS is the 4th largest employer in the United States

6. Ace Hardware

• Ace Hardware was founded in 1924 when the owners of 4 different hardware stores decided to join together and buy their supplies in bulk to maximize profits and compete with bigger chain stores. Today their cooperative has grown to nearly 7 countries worldwide and offer with a massive range of hardware products and home essentials and improvement products.

7. Planet Fitness

• Planet Fitness was started in 1992 by owner Michael Grondahl took over and bought a struggling gym, He then reduced membership rates, and focused on serving the regular members and first timers to provide quality service and to boost and incentivize regularity. Every planet fitness gym holds pizza night for all members once in a month as well as bagel mornings as a unique selling point.

8. Culvers

• Craig Culver worked in the restaurant and fast food industry before he started Culver’s. In 1984 with the help of his wife as well as parents, Craig started Culver’s in Sauk City, Wisconsin. Whenever Craig’s mother made burgers, she added extra dabs of butter to the buns, which added extra flavor, a tradition that is still followed in every Culver’s franchise around the globe.

• Unique to the brand, this fast food restaurant sells their own special brand of butter burgers as well as unique cheese curds, frozen custards and salads that are only available at Culver’s.

9. Pizza Hut LLC

• Pizza Hut had very humble origins. The founders, Frank and Dan Carney borrowed 600 USD from their mother to start a pizzeria in Wichita, Kansas. The first Pizza Hut opened in 1958 while the first franchised location opened in 1960 in Topeka, Kansas. Currently Pizza Hut has outlets in almost every country in the world where they serve not only pizzas, but tacos, pastas and wings. Pizza Hut is also owned by the parent company, “Yum! Brands” who also own KFC and Taco Bell.

10. 7 – Eleven Inc

• Founded in 1927 when one of the employees of the Southland Ice Company in Dallas started to sell milk, bread and eggs along with just ice blocks. That employee who was called, Joe Thompson, soon bought the company and renamed it to Southland Corporation and began opening convenience stores. As of date they have stores in nearly 55,000 different locations making them one of the largest franchise companies in the world. These were the Top 10 franchises on the Franchise 500 list generated and curated by entrepreneur.com, the lists are subject to change at any given time keeping in mind stock prices, economic fluctuations and financial decisions made by the company.