What kind of price difference exists between these eco-friendly products and standard products?

Gordon: There really is none. A CFL [compact fluorescent lamp] light bulb is more expensive, but how many times do you have to change that light bulb?

Long-term savings are a hard sell for franchisees. Credit card machines are a good example. Many operators were reluctant to make the initial investment despite the promised returns.

Gordon: We deal with a different type of franchisee. Our franchisees are looking at the overall cost of 10 years, where they are saving about 20 percent in their operational expense.

We’re not looking for the type of guy who only has like $50,000 and is trying to do everything the Wal-Mart way. So we’re looking for a very intelligent person who wants to build their business by being efficient in all aspects. And we haven’t had a problem at all.

If people are going to be looking at different costs and stuff to try to save money, I don’t think they would fit our guidelines. What we want is to build a business that is very efficient where they are making money, not saving money.

How do start-up costs for a Pizza Fusion unit compare to similarly positioned, but non-green concepts?

Lazar: It’s probably the same.

Gordon: It would be an unfair question for me to answer because I’ve never opened up another store.

You’ve never studied the competition?

Gordon: I don’t even know what you would consider our competition.

How are you going about finding these “very intelligent” franchisees?

Randy Romano: Most of our people are coming through our news coverage. We’ve found that people are willing to a pay a premium for a business that is not only profitable, but is also environmentally friendly.

Are they restaurateurs?

Romano: Some are. Some are people just looking to change their lives, looking to be in their own business but just need some guidance from a franchisor. It’s about 75 percent people who are new to the industry and 25 percent experienced restaurateurs.

When you sit down and go over your UFOC with experienced restaurateurs, what is the prevailing response?

Romano: They like the unique aspects of our business, that we’re not like every other pizza restaurant that’s out there. They like the fact that we take into our consideration environmental aspects as well as the profitability of it.

Do they question the cost of materials?

Romano: No, we haven’t found that to be true. We haven’t really found, at this point, a major difference in the build-out. We’re looking at a 10 percent difference from building a traditional store.

Lazar: To build our store, without taking the environment and energy efficiency in mind, if you weren’t aware of suppliers, you didn’t do any of your own homework, you’re probably looking at a 10 to 15 percent premium. But because of the fact that we’ve taken so much time in finding these vendors and suppliers and establishing these relationships firsthand as opposed to allowing a general contractor to do that, we’ve cut that cost down to really a no-cost premium.

So if it were Pizza Fusion as Pizza Fusion and we didn’t care about the environment, the cost would be maybe 5 to 10 percent, 15 tops, if we had no idea what we were doing.

We are a pizza place. We have walls just like everybody else. It’s the same equipment. We just opt for energy-efficient equipment. If you do the homework yourself and you spend a little time establishing relationships, you should be at a zero premium.

At the end of the day, you’re actually saving money because you’re using more energy-efficient equipment and making purchases based on that.