Franchising in US
Paris Baguette, a bakery brand operated by South Korea’s leading food company SPC Group, announced on May 8 that it is officially embarking on the franchise business in the U.S., with the opening of its first franchise store “Paris Baguette Hostetter” in San Jose, California.
After opening its first Paris Baguette store in Los Angeles in 2005, SPC Group has directly operated its 45 Paris Baguette outlets in the U.S.
Since 2013, it has opened seven stores in the main business district in Manhattan, New York, alone, successfully targeting the local market in the U.S. The group has also directly operated nine stores in Silicon Valley near San Jose in where the first franchise store is opened, being fully prepared to launch the franchise business. It plans to additionally open 10 franchise stores in the nation this year.
An official from the U.S. subsidiary of SPC Group said, “Starting with the Paris Baguette Hostetter, the group plans to expand its franchising business in the U.S. and open a total of 350 directly-operated and franchise-based stores across the country by 2020.”
Paris Baguette Hostetter is the first franchise in the country. Located in Hostetter Road, a major traffic point in San Jose, the store is a bakery café on a site of 225.8 square meters. The area is a complex business district with a residential area and a business area. About 60,000 middle-class households reside in the residential area within a radius of 5 kilometers. The company plans to offer pastries and cakes in the store and adopt its own premium coffee brand Café Adagio in order to differentiate its coffee menus.
Meanwhile, SPC Group announced last year that it will operate 2,000 Paris Baguette stores in the U.S. and China – their top two overseas markets – alone by 2030. It plans to expand stores across the nation in the future, such as Washington D.C., Virginia, Maryland, Illinois and Texas.