Gourmet Master Co (美食達人), the operator of cafe and bakery chain 85°C (85度C), on Saturday said that its new outlet in Seattle, Washington, is expected to generate at least US$600,000 in sales in the first month.
The Seattle store, which held its grand opening in Westfield Southcenter on Friday, is the chain’s 26th location in the US.
Gourmet said the new store has raked in more than US$16,000 in revenue every day since it opened on a trial basis on Feb. 14, with the average purchase about US$26. Sales have been growing steadily since the grand opening, the company said.
The new Seattle store, with 32 seats, is part of a strategy to extend the company’s reach beyond California and Texas.
Gourmet said it will use the Seattle outlet as its flagship store in the Pacific Northwest to build the market there and serve more consumers in ethnic Chinese communities.
Since the company gained a foothold in the US, each of its 25 stores has averaged about NT$130 million (US$4.24 million) in annual sales, Gourmet said.
The company opened six new outlets in the US last year and is planning to boost the number of stores there to 40 by the end of this year, as stores in the US command a higher profit margin than in other markets.
US operations currently account for about 15 percent of the chain’s total sales and the portion is expected to reach 20 percent this year, the company said.
It has a total of 978 stores worldwide, including 538 in China, 400 in Taiwan, six in Australia and eight in Hong Kong, and employs 23,000 people. It said it hopes to increase its number of outlets to about 1,020 by the end of this year.
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