Japanese-specialist bakery franchise Beard Papa is planning to link up with major developers to unveil 20 more stores in shopping centres in England by 2010, following success in Asia and the US.
The cream puff pastry specialist already has a store in Oxford Street, London, and plans to open a kiosk at Bluewater shopping centre, a café at Highcross in Leicester and another facility at the Bull Ring in Birmingham.
Willem Pupella, Beard Papa’s managing director in England, said most of the new developments would be kiosks rather than cafés, because high rents had to be taken into account. He added: "Our successful model is to use a small space to gain a high revenue."
Shopping centres were now the favoured sites, as performance was less conditioned by weather, security was better and high streets are "more reliant on footfall", said Pupella.
Beard Papa is linking up with Westfield, the Australian shopping centre firm, which has a development in Derby, and plans to extend this co-operation. Each store sells the signature cream puff, an eclair cream puff with chocolate on top, cheesecakes, tiramisu and chocolate fondant.
There are now more than 300 Beard Papa stores worldwide.
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