Global foodservice intelligence
Data-backed intelligence on how restaurant, coffee, and tea chains grow, franchise, and expand across markets — every figure tied to a source.
FoodBud's 12-part translated and annotated edition of Zhang Hongfu's Mixue founder-history memoir, with the source text kept separate from FoodBud analysis and notes.
(opens in new tab)Darden owns and operates its restaurants, so its $13.2B in FY2026 revenue is its actual scale — the company-operated mirror image of a franchisor's system-sales gap. The clean yardstick for company-operated revenue.
(opens in new tab)Same-store sales is the most-quoted number in restaurant earnings and the most misread. A comp is a traffic effect times a price-and-mix effect — decompose it into transactions and check before you judge the business. The analyst's lens, with worked examples from Starbucks, McDonald's, and Darden.
(opens in new tab)A franchisor's system sales and its revenue are two completely different things — and the gap between them is the franchise model itself. How $139B of customer spending becomes $27B of McDonald's revenue, why Domino's ratio is higher (supply chain), and the cross-basis comparison that misleads everyone.
(opens in new tab)Five of the biggest Western restaurant brands in China — KFC/Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Starbucks, Burger King, Domino's — and not one is a wholly-owned, HQ-operated business. The discipline that keeps you from misreading all of them: the footprint belongs to the operator, the royalty belongs to HQ, and the two must never be stacked.
(opens in new tab)Sysco is buying Restaurant Depot's parent for ~$29.1B — the largest deal in its history, in the invisible distribution layer beneath every restaurant. A distributor is sized by revenue and share, not operator metrics; and the price isn't Sysco's scale.
(opens in new tab)The 2026 China F&B Hong Kong IPO wave is record-breaking and sharply split — Mixue +130%, Nayuki −94%. A caliber framework for reading it: the franchise rate decides the basis, and the subscription multiple decides nothing.
(opens in new tab)Lao Xiang Ji (老乡鸡), China's largest home-style fast-food chain, has filed for Hong Kong — its 3rd HKEX try and 5th IPO attempt in four years. A ¥6.3B chain quietly migrating from company-operated to franchised, so its scale basis is in motion.
(opens in new tab)Zaihui (再惠) filed for a Hong Kong + Singapore dual listing as China's largest restaurant marketing-and-operations platform — serving 10,000+ brands. A demand-side platform, sized by revenue (~¥449M, 9M 2025), not the merchant GMV it moves.
(opens in new tab)Chipotle franchises nothing, so its $11.9 billion FY2025 revenue is the whole system — the cleanest scale read in big quick-service, and the one with the least cover.
(opens in new tab)The Domino's brand sells $20.1 billion of pizza, but the company that owns it books just $4.94 billion — and most of that is dough, not royalties. A franchise system read on the right basis.
