Do you want to be a pizza millionaire?

Apparently, it is possible, with the Domino's Pizza chain poised to roll out its expansion programme in the Midlands in the coming months.

The firm is hoping to increase the 18 stores it operates in the West Midlands by six in the region over the next 12 months.

Chris Moore, chief operating officer of the company, is spearheading the recruitment drive which could make some people very rich indeed.

Apparently there is one pizza baron in the South-east who owns 23 stores, and is among the 30 pizza millionaires in the company's ranks.

Sounds easy.

Well, aside from investing £230,000 to buy a ten year franchise, people are going to have to get busy. Very busy indeed.

Mr Moore said: "We want people who are extremely enthusiastic, ambitious, can deal with pressure and prepared to work hard.

"You will not believe how hard you will have to work. It does get very stressful, but we don't want people who are going to walk out on the first Friday or Saturday. Our selection and training process is intended to identify the people who can do this."

If it fails, people can leave and Domino's will allocate the franchise to someone else. When this happens in the early days of a store, he admitted people could get 'bruised'.

So why do it?

"There are potentially big rewards, huge rewards. But people have to work really hard. It does not come easily," said Mr Moore.

The company is currently looking for sites and franchisees.

Several areas across the Midlands are viewed as ripe for Domino's, including Aldridge, Rubery, Maypole and Hall Green in Birmingham.

"It is a very simple dynamic – we are trying to deliver a pizza in 30 minutes or less. Therefore each store has a finite market," said Mr Moore.

"At present 79 per cent of households in the Birmingham area cannot get a Domino's pizza."

There are 150 franchisees within the Domino's family – with 88 having more than one site. When you get more scale, that's where you get more millionaires.

For as well as trying to attract brand new entrants, Domino's is also trying to entice existing members to expand.

"We are trying to get our franchisees to take on more stores. As we double the number of sites, we don't want to keep these ratios.

"If we had 1,000 sites with 300 or 400 franchisees, it would get a bit unwieldy and could lead to a dilution of the brand."

But hasn't franchising got a bit of a bad name in recent years? Franchisees being saddled with massive start up costs without much support from the mother company?

Mr Moore, unsurprisingly, disagreed.

"We have got a group of people who can support the franchisee from the centre. And we've got a very good record. We have opened 200 sites over the last two years and only two have closed."

Part of this could come down to the filtering process the franchisees go through. Every year 3,000 people who apply are whittled down to 300 or so who are interviewed.

This in turn is reduced to the 30 or so lucky folk who get to