France: Top 50 Foodservice Companies 2009 - A Year of Quickservice

Generally, the biggest players in the French away-from-home-market show up as relatively robust. According to the current top ranking published in Néorestauration, the French trade magazine, there are six players among the 50 largest companies with, for the most part, a slight drop in turnover, whilst eleven have shown a double-digit increase. Well ahead of the rest were Yum! Brands (ranked 8th) - they showed an increase in turnover of just under 47%, with their network growing from 163 to 200 outlets, largely thanks to the KFC brand - and La Pataterie (ranked 43th) with some 53% growth in turnover and 17 new outlets, bringing their total up to 52. The Top 50 in total reached a sales volume of c12.25 bn (+7.45%). However, according to NPD Group France, the total market shrank by c600 m.
 
Many in the industry had expected rather more in France from the lowering of the VAT rate. Customer spending in restaurants was around the c33.5 bn mark in 2009 - 1.8% down on the previous year. The hoped-for stimulus to the traditional fullservice restaurant sector, in particular, failed to materialise. As Néorestauration confirms, this is also due to the fact that numerous structural changes are increasingly upsetting traditional French eating patterns, such as less time for lunch and lower budgets for business lunches and travel.