Franchisees sue Bojangles over marketing [Video]

Bojangles franchisees say the company refused to cooperate on a marketing audit. | Photo: Shutterstock.

Bojangles franchisees are suing the brand over its marketing fund, arguing that the company stopped providing regular information on how those dollars get used.

The Bojangles of America Franchisee Association (BFA), a group representing most of the chain’s operators, is also accusing the Charlotte-based franchise of keeping a secret “accrual account” for disposing of discontinued products. That account is not disclosed in franchise documents and operators only discovered it four years after its creation, the BFA says in its complaint.

The lawsuit, filed in a North Carolina Superior Court, says that the company promised in 2022 to allow the BFA to audit the marketing fund and the accrual account, at the association’s expense. The group began to conduct the audit and then Bojangles “unilaterally ended the audit” and has stopped providing any information about the …