Chains plan expansion up to 2011
Valor Econômico
While in the United States the chains of causal dinning, restaurants that serve quick meals, were forced to make a reengineering in the menu, reducing the prices and sizes of the meals to face the crisis and the attack of fast-food companies on the consumers whose pockets were empty, in Brazil, most of them grows and plans to open stores within the next two years.
Applebee's, international leader of the sector, will open two other units in São Paulo, one in the capital and another one in the interior in 2010. The brand got to Brazil in 2004 and has nine stores. According to Norman Baines, Regional Director for South America, the goal is to increase the clientele in cities where it is already installed, giving the patrons more options. The chain gets to Brasília, Curitiba and a Northeastern city - today there is one in Recife - in 2011. Baines says the chain will have growth of 14.2% in sales in 2009. It will do so through a franchise system. The country is divided into four geographical areas: São Paulo, the Northeast, the Centre - which included the Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Brasília - and the South. Each is managed by a group of entrepreneurs. The investment to open a store amounts to nearly R$ 2.5 million (US$ 1.45 million).
Data of the sector indicate that over the next five years, nearly five million consumers will get to the market of restaurants in Brazil with the growth of class C. The expenditure with meals outside the households will grow from the current 24% to 30% of the domestic budget. In the largest countries of Europe, it gets to 50%. And the sector in Brazil is still very fragmented into small restaurants - only 1% is in the hands of large chains.
Taking such data into account, the American chain Outback that features an Australia-based menu will open four restaurants this year. Two cities have already been defined: Brasília and Vitória. The number is the same every year and the crisis did not cause a fall in the sales or a change in projects. 27 restaurants have already been opened in the country since 1997. Salim Maroun, President of Outback in Brazil, projects a 10% increase in 2009 and 2010. All new partners are employees of the company that started as clerks in the stores. The investment in a store is nearly R$ 4.7 million (US$ 2.73 million). The partner invests R$ 60 thousand (US$ 34.9 thousand) and the rest is invested by the chain.
Two Brazilian brands, Viena and Ráscal, operate in the same way - informal restaurant - and are investing. Viena has 34 stores and continues with aggressive expansion plans. The company does not officially confirm the projects, but Valor found out that the goal is to grow in the Midwestern and Southern regions. The idea is to take advantage of the operation that is already established and grow.
Ráscal will invest in the renovation of the stores and in 2011 it resumes its expansion. Its owners, Roberto Bielawski and his wife Liane Ralston, former owners of Viena, opened a store in 1994 and now there are nine restaurants in Rio and São Paulo already. According to Bielawski, this year will be a year of consolidation of the operations of Rio de Janeiro and architectural and structural reforms in the stores of São Paulo. The investment will amount to R$ 3 million (US$ 1.74 million). In 2010, a new store will probably be opened in Alphaville, in São Paulo.