Since it opened its first location in London in Wimbledon in 2012, Sticks’n’Sushi has been gradually expanding its London empire with units in Covent Garden, Greenwich and Canary Wharf. Now the Danish-Japanese restaurant group is set to take its ‘affordable luxury’ offering across the UK.Next month, Sticks’n’Sushi will open its first restaurants outside the capital…

Marrybrown, the Malaysian quick-service chain, has big expansion plans for 2016. It opened six new outlets domestically in the past month, and expects to add another 20 outlets nationwide this year. Marrybrown, headquartered in Johor Baru, offers burgers, chicken, fish and local dishes at about 350 quick-service outlets in 16 countries, including more than 130…

Paris Baguette, the South Korean fast-casual bakery café chain, hopes to grow its U.S. footprint from 70 stores to 10% of its total store count by 2020. While its 3,500 stores dot the streets of South Korea, China, Singapore, Vietnam, and France, Paris Baguette only began franchising in the U.S. last year, a decade after…

NSF International has launched the first-ever compliance verification program to cover the hygienic quality of commercial foodservice equipment under European guidelines and legislation. Its HCV EU (HACCP Compliance Verification) program offers a risk-based approach to verify the design and cleanability aspects of products offered in the EU commercial foodservice/catering equipment market. In addition to enabling…

Specifi LLC, the U.S.-based provider of end-to-end design information and solutions supporting the foodservice equipment specification process, has agreed to purchase the business of Schematic Ltd, the Edinburgh, Scotland-based supplier of Building Information Modeling (BIM) software, content creation and repository services to the European foodservice equipment industry.  “The acquisition of Schematic’s business reflects our commitment…

Ali Group has promoted Filippo Berti to Chief Executive Officer, effective September 1. Berti will have responsibility for all of the Milan, Italy-based firm’s 77 brands and operating companies worldwide. He joined the Ali Group in May 2008 with the acquisition of Beverage-Air, where he held the role of president. He most recently served as CEO…

Sysco Corp. is acquiring U.K.-based foodservice distributor Brakes Group for $800 million, a move that sharply expands the Houston company’s overseas presence after regulators last year blocked its effort to buy US Foods, its chief domestic rival. Sysco CEO Bill DeLaney calls the transaction a means to further international deals; the broadliner currently earns 90%…

Cara Operations Ltd., Canada’s oldest and largest full-service restaurant company, has inked an agreement to acquire Groupe St-Hubert, the Laval, Quebec-based full-service operator and food manufacturer for $414 million. St-Hubert is Canada’s fourth-largest full-service operator. Its businesses include 80 full-service restaurants and 37 express locations. Nearly 90% are operated by franchisees and 92% of its…

Despite political and economic turmoil in many of the world’s major foodservice markets, sales and customer traffic rose, according to the latest data from The NPD Group’s CREST studies. Traffic rose more than 2% in Australia, China and Great Britain, and also was positive in Spain, Italy and the U.S. Traffic in France had been…

A slight slowdown in growth of the British economy, a somewhat more cautious consumer, and the uncertainties surrounding the referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the European Union are among the “stones in the road” impacting the foodservice market in the UK These factors and others led London-based foodservice research firm Horizons to forecast a…