Auntie Anne’s, Inc., the largest soft pretzel franchisor in North America, recently opened the first of the country’s 17 pretzel locations outside of Sydney, Australia.
Wawa and Alice Sulaeman, the Company’s first international licensees, expanded their operations to this new continent for Auntie Anne’s, rolling pretzels for customers at the Westfield Bondi Junction mall in New South Wales on September 2, 2004.
Under the corporate name D’Fruitty Company, Pte Ltd., the Sulaemans are slated to open the remaining locations over the course of the next five years. The husband-and-wife team became members of Auntie Anne’s system in 1995 with the opening of Auntie Anne’s first international pretzel shop in Jakarta, Indonesia. Since then, the Sulaemans expanded into Singapore and Malaysia, owning and operating a total of 33 locations across four countries.