Posted on Feb 6, 2019 2020 at 17:50Updated Feb 7, 2019 2020 at 16:59
In early spring, Angelina will be established in New York. The Bertrand group brand, known for its hot chocolates and Mont-Blanc cakes, will open a tea room there, incorporating all the codes of the luxury label. Frescoes, moldings, marble tables, chairs with Louis XVI medallions will recall the decor of the original house located rue de Rivoli in Paris and very frequented by foreigners. The future pastry manager is the assistant of Christophe Appert, the pastry chef of the house.
Takeaway
Besides the forty or so seats, the place was also designed to meet the strong local needs for take-out, including through the salty. “We have great ambitions in the United States. The brand is eagerly awaited there. Many Americans know us. We are already receiving requests to privatize the place ”, underlines its general manager, Isabelle de Bardies. This arrival in Manhattan is done in joint venture with a master franchisee for the city. The search for a second site is already underway.
Angelina is taking a new step this year in her international development policy. Very Franco-French for a long time, the brand has moved up a gear in its expansion. It now has 31 points of sale, including 21 outside of France. Four openings took place last year, from Qatar to Kuwait. The only downside, the coronavirus is putting the brakes on the very recent Chinese activity. The first point of sale opened there last August, in Changsha, located 350 kilometers from Wuhan. It has been closed since January 24 and hopes to reopen on February 10, but without certainty.
Many projects
Among the projects are new tea rooms in Saudi Arabia, where the brand is already present. It also aims, in the long term, to at least double its sales in Japan, a country where it has been established for a long time, thanks to a change of partner. In the longer term, the house is interested in Canada and would like to settle in London. “The pastry market is very dynamic around the world. It is not necessary to take market share from some to find a place there ”, estimates Isabelle de Bardies.
The international strategy is paying off. In 2019, the brand saw a 9% increase in its overall sales, at an undisclosed amount. In France, it has managed to make good progress despite the “yellow vests” and the end-of-year strikes thanks to an explosion in activity in the second and third quarters. And, since the takeover by Groupe Bertrand in 2005, it has multiplied the turnover of its tearoom on rue de Rivoli by five.
In France after Lyon, Toulouse
Angelina also intends to develop in France. It has franchise projects in the Paris region but also in Toulouse. It has already crossed the perimeter of Ile-de-France in 2018 with an opening in the Lyon region. “There is potential for the brand in large cities like Bordeaux or Cannes”, adds the general manager.
In Paris, 2019 was the occasion to refresh the emblematic address of rue de Rivoli, frequented by 1,200 customers per day and which generates sometimes spectacular queues. The next challenge will be to reduce the discrepancy in the perception of the sign between foreigners and the French. And to reach out more to the younger generations.
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