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Chick-fil-A is set to invest $1 billion to pursue a major international expansion to tap new markets in Asia and Europe, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
The homegrown chicken chain founded and based in Atlanta is undertaking the expansion with third-generation CEO Andrew Cathy at the helm. Mr. Cathy, who took over the chief executive role in September 2021, outlined the plans in an exclusive interview with the financial newspaper.
According to the WSJ, plans call for restaurants opening in each region by 2026 and in at least five new markets by 2030.
Even with more than $16 billion in sales last year across 2,700 restaurants, Chick-fil-A still has plenty of room to expand stateside, especially beyond its traditional strongholds in the South. (The first store on the Hawaiian island of Oahu just opened in October.)
But Chick-fil-A has also watched as many other chicken chains have tapped into nearly limitless appetite for new concepts purveying various fried permutations of the world’s No. 1 meat protein.
Yum Brands Inc.’s Kentucky Fried Chicken is a household name in China, and Atlanta-based Church’s Chicken, which operates under the name Texas Chicken in many markets, is aggressively pursuing even more expansion abroad. Popeyes, which moved away from Atlanta in 2018, is trying anew in the South Korean market, a fertile field for U.S. brands where Chick-fil-A has expressed interest in the past.
Chick-fil-A’s global efforts, much like its domestic growth, have been measured and methodical, but they don’t exactly come as a surprise.
Outgoing CEO Dan Cathy nodded to international growth as a major opportunity in 2021 and said the company was excited about bringing its model to Asia. Andrew Cathy, the 43-year-old current CEO, began heading up international strategy in 2016 when he took on the role of executive vice president of operations. The company’s LinkedIn page advertises openings for heads of supply chain, design, legal and tax for its international division, headed by Anita Costello, executive vice president of international, according to the WSJ.
Most recently, Chick-fil-A has launched new stores in Canada and Puerto Rico, but it has yet to venture further afield, perhaps chastened by ill-fated previous forays in global markets, including a five-year stint in South Africa that started with an agreement with the DanCor Group signed in 1995. A mall location west of London closed down in 2019 after being targeted for protests by gay-rights advocates. The company has been criticized for Dan Cathy’s comments opposing gay marriage and for its foundation’s prior support of organizations favoring traditional marriage.
The Journal reported that Chick-fil-A plans to stick with its owner-operator model abroad rather than granting master franchisee licenses to intermediaries that open multiple stores in a given market. It also plans to use a mix of domestic and foreign suppliers to replicate its supply chain, the newspaper said, adding that few adaptations to the menu are envisaged.
The announcement promises to make Atlanta an even larger hub for international franchising. Read more about its leadership in that space here.