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Nando's Group Holdings Limited
Nando's runs a chain of casual restaurants famous for flame-grilled peri-peri chicken, and it also sells its sauces in supermarkets.
Nando's is a restaurant chain built around one thing: chicken grilled over an open flame and coated in peri-peri sauce, a spicy chili marinade with roots in southern Africa. People come for a casual meal — a half chicken, some chips, a wrap — and the vibe is fast-casual rather than fancy. The company runs roughly 1,200 restaurants across more than 20 countries, with its biggest markets in South Africa and the United Kingdom, plus a meaningful presence in Australia, Canada, and a handful of others.
The company makes money in two ways. Most of it comes from running its own restaurants, where customers pay for food and drink, either eating in or ordering takeaway. On top of that, it sells its peri-peri sauces and marinades in grocery stores, which is a smaller but steady business that spreads the brand far beyond the restaurants. The grocery side matters because a bottle of sauce in a supermarket is cheap advertising — it keeps the name in front of people who might then walk into a restaurant. What sets Nando's apart is a mix of spice and personality. The food is genuinely spicy and customers choose their heat level, which turns a simple meal into a small personal ritual. The brand leans into a cheeky, irreverent tone — its ads and even its peri-peri sauce naming have a sense of humor — and that gives it a loyal following without needing to compete on price. It is also famously private about its chicken sourcing and has built a reputation for not cutting corners there.
Nando's is still controlled by its founding family and has never been a public company, so it doesn't chase quarterly numbers the way listed chains do. That has let it expand slowly and carefully, mostly by opening its own restaurants rather than franchising everything out. The main risks are the ones any restaurant chain faces: rising food and labor costs, fussy customers, and the fact that a single protein — chicken — sits at the center of the whole business. Still, a spicy chicken chain with a cult following and a supermarket sauce line is a fairly durable little empire.
Saved answer · last researched 10 Nov 2026