*NEWSBITES
SANTIAGO — Already the top dog in Chile’s fast food market, the Santiago-based holding company Gastronomía y Negocios (G&N) is now looking to export its signature franchise – Doggis – to the rest of the South America.
The company first went sniffing around for new business in Brazil, where it inked a deal in 2009 to open its hot dog restaurants in partnership with the Brazilian company BFFC. Little more than two years later there are already 15 Doggis operating in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
G&N is now setting its sights on Chile’s northern neighbor, Peru, where it just opened a flagship Doggis in Lima. The company expects that in time it can sell as many hot dogs in Peru as it does in Chile, where completos – as hot dogs are called there – are something of a national obsession. Right now, Chile accounts for roughly $100 million of the food vendor’s $130 million in annual sales.
What’s next after Peru? Colombia, according to the Gastronomía y Negocios’ 2012-2014 three-year expansion plan. “We’re doing things bit by bit,” says G&N’s general manager, Mauricio Taladriz. Doggis now has roughly 160 restaurants in total. “That’s a perfectly reasonable number to expect in Peru as well,” says Taladriz.
In Peru, G&N has partnered with Delosi, which already operates franchises of popular U.S. brands like Starbucks, Chili’s, Burger King and Pizza Hut.
None of this is to say that the hot dog market in Chile – where people like to garnish their dogs with pureed avocado, diced tomatoes and healthy gobs of mayonnaise – is by any means saturated. Over the next five years, the company plans to double its domestic presence by focusing specifically on smaller cities.
Read more from AméricaEconomía in Spanish
Photo – Paul Lowry
*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations
