Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店), the nation’s second-largest convenience store chain, is extending its operations from retailing to the food and beverage sector with plans to open its first restaurant in the fourth quarter at the earliest.
Its subsidiary, Family International Gourmet Co (全家國際餐飲), signed a deal with Don Co, Japan’s largest steak restaurant group, on Thursday to introduce one of the latter’s four brands in Taiwan.
Don Co has more than 200 steak houses throughout Japan with an annual gross revenue of more than US$260 million, according to its Web site.
It has four restaurant brands: Family Steak House DON, Shabu Shabu Don tei, Steak House VOLKS and Don-Italiano.
The brand that will come to Taiwan is VOLKS, which was established in 1970 and was one of the first in Japan to launch salad and soup bars to accompany steak dishes. Now, more than half of the 50 VOLKS steakhouses in Japan serve a buffet of oven-fresh homemade bread.
Family International Gourmet, set up in September with NT$50 million (US$1.6 million) in capital, is a latecomer into the food and beverage business as larger rival President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), which runs 7-Eleven stores, brought in food and beverage brands including Starbucks, Mister Donut and Afternoon Tea, about 10 years ago, as well as two self-brands: 21 Century (21世紀風味館) and Semeur de Pain (聖娜多堡).
FamilyMart reported a 9.5 percent growth in revenue for the first eight months of this year to NT$28.4 million, while President Chain saw a rise of 11.7 percent to NT$75.4 billion.
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