Press ReviewsKochlöffel has almost as long a history as Wienerwald. Founded in 1963 in Rheine (Emsland), this quick service restaurant now has 100 branches.
Along with chicken, the menu includes burgers (beef), sausages und salads. The main featured product, however, is its half chicken, or which some 4 m portions are sold a year to around 13 m guests. Not even bird flu could make much (permanent) effect here. "Yes, we did see sales of half chickens fall at the start of 2006", admits franchise manager Wolfgang Kaiser, "but sales more than recovered towards the end of the year." 25 - 30% of food sales are generated by this crispy poultry product (EUR 2,75 per portion, three halves for EUR 6,49), a further 10 - 15% by processed chicken ingredients, such as "Chicken Krossies", so chicken burgers and chicken wings.
Put it all together, and chicken of whatever kind accounts for more than 40% of food sales.
"People see us as a chicken specialist", confirms Wolfgang Kaiser. "That is our core expertise and our classic product, and we shall continue to rely on it in future." When it comes to processed chicken specialities (which, incidentally, suffered no adverse effects from bird flu, since the guest does not associate them directly with a bird) they are experimenting with new taste profiles, such as piquant, or Asian."
Around half the outlets are currently run by franchisees. Typical characteristics: an A1 site in medium-size towns or cities. The restaurants have seating areas of between 70 and 100 sq m. A smaller type of outlet, 30 cq m and above, can be set up in shopping centres and railway stations. Total sales for Germany in 2008 were EUR 47 m.
Kochlöffel has also been operating in neighbouring Poland since 1995. Its outlets - of which there are currently eight - are called conieco.; average guest numbers per unit per month are 13.000. The product rage is the same as that in Germany, but the food comes solely from Polish suppliers.
www.kochloeffel.de
Source: FOODSERVICE EUROPE & MIDDLE EAST |
