Malcolm Jenkins is not slowing down in the fast-casual food space.
As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the former NFL player leads Disrupt Foods, a multi-unit franchise developer and operator of quick-service restaurants. According to his LinkedIn, the goal is to create franchising opportunities for Black and brown communities.
“If there’s a mission for me and how I’m moving now, what I want to have an impact on is really educating people on the power of group economics. People when they have success, most of the time they do it as a collective family, as a community. Owning businesses in their own communities,” he said. “When you look at [Black communities] we don’t own the majority of the businesses in it. We don’t own homes most of the time. It just continues to push us into pockets of poverty that are harder and harder to climb out of as an individual,” he told WHYY News.
Leading by example, he established Disrupt Foods in 2016 alongside his business partner, Joe Johnson.
“In 2016 my partner and I looked at how the majority of wealthy people in this country make money, and franchising came up, and that’s how we came up with Disrupt Foods,” Jenkins said, according to Franchise Times.
Through Disrupt Foods, Jenkins has established several Wingstop and Papa Johns locations. Both franchises were strategic business moves, as he viewed them as profitable and believed they could be longstanding investments.
“We have 24 Papa Johns and three Wingstops now with another set to open soon,” Jenkins said while onstage on Nov. 12 during the Restaurant Finance and Development Conference in Las Vegas, NV, per Franchise Times.
Jenkins also has aspirations to become the largest Black-owned franchisee of the restaurant brands in the United States, according to WHYY News.
Beyond the fast casual industry, Jenkins also leads a production company, clothing brand, and real estate company with projects established in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Georgia.
