Burger King opened its first restaurant in Russia in Moscow in January, with the franchise controlled by local café chain Shokoladnitsa. Despite the announcement of two further planned restaurants for the capital, the franchise deal will not be an exclusive one throughout Russia, the director of Burger King Rus, Yana Pesotskaya, told Interfax.
The new St. Petersburg restaurant will be located alongside a cinema and other entertainment facilities in the Galeria commercial center near Ligovsky Prospekt, in the city center. “We are confident in the success of the commercial center and are seeing great interest on the part of commercial operators,” said Anna Nikandrova, a consultant from Burger King’s consultant on the lease, Jones Lang LaSalle.
Fast food in Russia is a boom industry, yet considered under-penetrated by many international firms and industry analysts.
One of the company’s key rivals, McDonald’s, celebrated its 20-year anniversary in Russia at the end of January, marking the occasion with the announcement of 45 new outlets in the country. In early February Cremonini Group, an Italian firm, opened a meat plant near Moscow that will produce up to 80,000 hamburger patties an hour for McDonald’s, as authorities welcomed the move as an increase in locally produced food.
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