bakery
A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based baked goods made in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, doughnuts, bagels, Pastry, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as Coffeehouse, cafés, servi ...
and
restaurant chain
A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate many retail markets, dining markets, and service categories in many pa ...
. As of 2022, it is the third-largest restaurant chain in France after
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...
and
Burger King
Burger King Corporation (BK, stylized in all caps) is an American multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacks ...
.
The chain was founded in 2004 by Bernard Blachère, a market gardener from
Ardèche
Ardèche (; , ; ) is a Departments of France, department in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Southeastern France. It is named after the river Ardèche (river), Ardèche and had a population of 328,278 as of 2019.
As of 2022, the chain employs 11,000 people and has a revenue of a billion euros. It sells 280 million baguettes annually{{Cite journal , last=Lavabre , first=Sylvie , date=20 June 2022 , title=Les secrets de Marie Blachère, champion français de la boulangerie , url=https://www.lsa-conso.fr/les-secrets-de-marie-blachere-champion-francais-de-la-boulangerie,413166 , access-date=2022-07-23 , website= LSA , language=fr at a price of 74 cents. It operates 700 stores (as well as seven franchised stores) in all of France except Paris, where the company said rents are too high to allow the chain to implement its policy of selling its bread at the same price nationwide. The founder, Bernard Blachère, retains 91% of the stock.