The budget gym boom: how low-cost clubs are driving up membership

Hundreds of cheaper fitness facilities are popping up in the UK – often in place of fast-food restaurants – and one in seven of us is now a signed up member

Confidentiality clauses bar the sharing of locations, but somewhere in Britain, an enterprising businessperson is turning a series of Papa John’s Pizza restaurants into budget gyms. Where customers once gorged on premium hawaiians and the chain’s trademarked All the Meats offering, they can now spend the price of one large pizza on a month’s worth of gut busting.

The gyms are operated by franchisees for énergie Fitness, a growing brand in a market on steroids (not literally, of course). Marketing manager Andrew Croney says its franchise model, unique at the affordable end of the market, has also attracted forward-looking operators of branches of Subway, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut.

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