2023-08-08 20:32:42
McDonald’s, Restalia, RBI and Alsea are the “Big Four” of restaurants in Spain with a joint business volume of more than 4,000 million euros, almost 4,000 operating establishments, 400 new stores opened in the last year and a growth of restaurants 10% since the coronavirus pandemic, as shown by a sectoral report prepared by the Coordinated Institute of Governance and Applied Economics on the restaurant market in Spain.
The hotel industry is going through “one of its brightest moments”, and that is that organized catering has experienced a growth in the number of premises of 8.3%, compared to 0.1% for the independent hotel industry, recalls the report ‘UVE Data Market Horeca 2023’. Given the “good moment that this sector is experiencing”, the Coordenadas Institute has focused on it, specifically on the leading companies in Spain, which it defines as the “Big Four”. McDonald’s, RBI, Alsea and Restalia are crowned, by number of stores and volume, as the largest and reference brands “that define the course of the market and trends”.
Alsea
The Mexican group Alsea led by Alberto Torrado is “one of the most powerful” in Spain, “a strength that it has achieved through acquisitions of different brands,” they explain. The group landed in Spain in 2014, when it took over 72% of the Zena Group, a firm that currently controls Foster’s Hollywood and Domino’s Pizza, among other chains.
In 2018, it acquired and incorporated 100% of Grupo Vips into the holding for a value of 500 million euros, thus becoming the largest restaurant group in Spain. With Vips, it also controls all of Starbucks in Spain until 2030.
“After difficult years with losses that exceeded 75 million euros during the pandemic, the company returned to the path of recovery in 2022 with a profit of more than 80 million euros,” they explain in the study. Now, he intends to relaunch Olé Molé, a Mexican food chain that was launched in 2019 “but it seems that it has not finished coming together”, and the study points out that it must decide the future of TGI Fridays, since it competes directly with Foster’s.
RBI
Restaurants Brands Iberia (RBI), owner of Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons is also among the “Big Four”. Right now it belongs to the Cinven fund, which took over the company for 1,000 million, the largest operation in the sector in Spain. The new funds obtained were allocated to the acquisition of Burger King restaurants that Ibersol previously operated in Portugal and that RBI sought to recover under its own regime, as well as the growth of new brands with its own restaurants. This positioned the company as the second largest company by number of restaurants, exceeding 900 units.
The company closed 2022 with a 32% increase in turnover compared to 2021, although they face “the challenge” of controlling a debt that has skyrocketed to 900 million euros derived from their strong investment in opening stores, according to The report.
Its strategic priorities have focused on the recovery of the Burger King operation, the only one that closed 2022 positively, and the commitment to new ones, particularly Popeyes, which has achieved an “unstoppable pace” with 90 openings to date. Looking to the future, the company is also preparing to go public, as it announced a few weeks ago,
Remainders
For its part, Restalia appears in the ranking as the largest organized Spanish catering company and stands out for having 100% of its capital owned by its founder, José María Capitán. All this with their own brands such as 100 Montaditos or The Good Burger.
The last published annual accounts, for 2021, reflected “a complete recovery” after the pandemic, with a closing characterized by “very good data” and a turnover that increased by 64% compared to 2020. For 2022 the company expected , as announced at the beginning of the year, an improvement of 23%, a figure similar to what it expects for 2023.
According to the Coordinated Institute of Governance and Applied Economics, the good start to the year seems to confirm the good moment that the Spanish company is going through, whose forecast is to open 100 new business units, with international expansion as “one of the top priorities”. since by 2030 it is expected that the international weight will represent 30% of the total.
McDonald’s
Finally, the study points to McDonald’s, which has made “a strong commitment” to Spain. Currently, it maintains a constant growth rate through the franchise model, quite the opposite of the expansion model of its main competitor, Burger King, who prefers to do so through its own stores.
Currently, the company has more than 580 stores. At the end of the first quarter of the year, the company confirmed the investment of 250 million euros to face the forecast of 125 new stores until 2025 in Spain, as well as the creation of more than 6,000 jobs.
For the Coordinate Institute, McDonald’s is “without a doubt” one of the most stable companies in Spain. However, the report warns that, of the ‘Big Four’, “it is the one that is moderating its growth the most while its main competitor, Burger King, is stepping on the accelerator.”
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