ALLIED BRANDS ROCKED BY BASKIN ROBBINS MIDDLE MANAGEMENT EXODUS ! !

Details are sketchy as several Baskin Robbins franchisees have received calls from senior management to "shut up" talking to the media. One was told "a big deal" is in the works, and continued discussion about "minor problems" would destroy a deal that's good for all franchisees.

We've heard it all before.

CRAIG CLARKE was hired with great fanfare as the "Franchise Business Manager" for New South Wales shops. This is where the greatest concentration of "Korean Visa" shops has developed, and the massive level of problems with this and the other stores have just pushed him over the edge. He said to one franchisee "I'm just the front man to take the (franchisee) abuse for a system that doesn't work".

STEVE HALLS has been around a little longer, and was said to have been a failed coffee shop franchisee. Nice going. He's now left as well, and under what are reported to be similar circumstances as Craig Clarke.

These are positions that Allied Brands has failed to staff correctly for years. As senior management seeks to insulate themselves further from the crumbling franchisee network, poor dummies are roped into a management position with a fancy title, and told little about what awaits them when they are sent out like so many slaughtered lambs.

Allied Brands has not even bothered to send any of them for Baskins training in the US - they're expected to fail, I guess.