Sorry…hard to resist the temptation for a headline like that, but it’s true. If you’re a fan of the Quick style of fast-food burger and fries, time is growing short as Quick’s Belgian parent company prepares to sell its 509 French stores to Burger King. The deal would not affect outlets in other countries.
Burger King is the #2 fast-food chain in the world, after McDonald’s, but left France in the late 1990s because it could not find market share competing with McDonald’s and Quick. McDonald’s has about 1200 stores in France and the biggest market share. Burger King only returned in 2013, with a single outlet at the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris, and has since opened 21 more.
Bertrand Groupe, which is the major shareholder of Burger King France announced Monday that it is in “exclusive negotiations” with Quick. If the deal goes as anticipated, Burger King would vault into a solid #2 position. Burger King’s return has been successful so far; the burger business in France is expanding, but industry experts are surprised that Burger King’s stores averaged €4.7 million profit per store, twice Quick’s and 50% more than McDonald’s.
Sadly, this is all against a background in which burgers, and especially fast-food burgers, have grown so fast that they now represent one in four restaurant meals eaten in France.
