German discounter Aldi Süd opened its first pop-up restaurant in Cologne, Germany. Located in the Mediapar office zone, this Aldi Bistro concept covers 90 sq.m with 50 seats. The service is created by locking eight containers around a roof terrace. Aldi Bistro sells a daily menu priced at €7.99 for three months. This includes a starter, a main course and a dessert that changes daily. Menus are sourced exclusively from Aldi stores. Depending on the success of this pilot, other units could open in Germany. According to Felix Muxel, C.E.O. of Nymphenburg Consultancy in München, the turnover of Aldi in Germany reached €28.3 billion in 2016, up by 1.4%.

For the world's largest furniture retailer Ikea, which achieved sales of €34.2 billion in the year to August 2016, +7%, the food business has become an unexpected source of business growth. After pilots with stand-alone pop-up restaurants in European capitals such as London (Shoreditch, Westfield Stratford), Paris and Oslo (Norway), Ikea is now considering opening permanent restaurants offering "formal catering at an affordable price". At the global level, Ikea's grocery sales drove 5.4% of the group's business last year, expanding by 8.3% year-on-year, exceeding the growth rate of furniture. Ikea is upgrading restaurant areas, including higher-end materials (lighting, furniture), introducing table service and reinventing the menus with local products, fresh bread, vegan recipes and sustainable ingredients. In the U.S.A., 30% of Ikea's visitors only use the restaurants and do not buy furniture products.

Illustration 'Discount retailers embrace stand-alone restaurants' (jpg - 0.13Mo)