Jumbo CEO has big plans for La Place

Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo wants to expand its restaurant chain La Place into a global concept with hundreds of locations. Currently, it owns just under a dozen La Place restaurants, but that is to change quickly. 

Closed due to Covid

The supermarket chain took over the La Place restaurants five years ago, after the collapse of department store chain V&D. At the time, more than a hundred branches were involved, but in recent years, a lot of restaurants were shut down. Today, Jumbo only has about ten La Place restaurants left.

“La Place has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis”, Jumbo CEO Frits Van Eerd says in an interview with NU.nl. “What do you expect when you have to close for a year?” Early this year, Jumbo transferred the operation of more than forty branches to the group Vermaat. The supermarket chain still owns the formula and kept ten restaurants.

Ambitious

Despite this major setback, Van Eerd sees a bright future for the restaurant chain. “We want to establish hundreds of La Place outlets around the world, with at least a hundred in the Netherlands.” A smaller new concept, La Place Express, will play a crucial role in this. The newcomer is a smaller to-go concept for sandwiches and juices. “We want the new concept to be in ever location with a considerable footfall”, he says.

The focus of the expansion will be on the Netherlands, however. The operation will be partly under its own management and partly through franchising.