Article

We went from a niche market to a social phenomenon in just a few years

July 10, 2019

Dubble is a "healthy" fast food franchise that offers natural and fresh dishes prepared on-site. Launched in 2006 by Corinne Fossey-Eon and Jean-François Eon, it is expanding rapidly on a fast-growing market aiming to combine healthy eating with active care for the environment.

How has your market changed since 2006?

When we opened our first restaurant in Marseille in 2006, we wanted to tap into a niche, high-end market in seven or eight major cities in France. Awareness of the relationship between diet and health is now widespread, and consumers are demanding healthy food. It's a modern social phenomenon. One of our most recent openings was in Chartres, a small town, where the restaurant was an immediate success.

Another striking phenomenon is how vegetarian and vegan dishes have become commonplace. They went from a very narrow segment, available at bohemian restaurants, to a full-fledged market. It's amazing. A survey conducted last year in 10 of our restaurants showed that 30 percent of our customers chose us for our vegetarian or vegan dishes.

So, how are you going to nearly double your number of restaurants by 2020?

Although the market has a lot of momentum, competition is quite weak. Outside Paris, which is a special case, only the Salad Bar and Spok franchises come close to our concept. Our real competitors are independent restaurants offering takeaway with fresh products prepared on-site, but there are few of them. We have no difficulty finding franchisees. Our brand already has 37 restaurants, with 10 more opening this year and around 20 in the works. So, it's not a stretch to aim for 70 restaurants by the end of 2020, especially as we have a number of multiple franchisees, co-option is working well, and the success and quality of our restaurants has convinced our customers to jump in themselves.

What are you doing to protect the environment?

This is something we pay close attention to. Our paper bags are made in France from pine residue from the Landes region. Our cutlery is made of corn starch and will soon be made of wood. Starting in October 2019, our meal boxes will be made of bamboo pulp, as will our cups, currently made of cardboard. Except for box covers, all our disposables will soon be compostable and environmentally friendly.

All our recipes use fresh seasonal products to promote short supply chains, whenever local agriculture makes it possible. We are now listing organic grain suppliers, which is a key step for us because our recipes use a lot of it.

To control food waste, our franchisees can join the Too Good to Go program. It's an app that allows you to offer the day's unsold products at prices three to four times lower than their value. The first six months of use was very promising. Twenty Dubble restaurants joined the program and "saved" the equivalent of 7300 meals.

Then there's waste separation, which remains a thorny issue. It's financially burdensome for our restaurants, and it's impossible to handle in the same way across our chain. As commercial operators, we are now responsible for arranging our own waste collection. Local authorities are no longer required to do this. The channels are unfortunately not always developed, and the solutions available vary considerably from one city to the next. We're working on it, but we know that we must find solutions on a case-by-case basis.

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