Expo bakery struggles to make dough

• Source: Global Times
• [08:30 August 02 2010]
• Comments

By Duan Wuning

Organizers of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai Sunday rejected a Taiwanese bakery's request to sell products to visitors queuing outside pavilions in an effort to bolster sales, after the chain's massive losses inside the Expo Park.

Christine bakery's flagship Expo Park store is located in the basement of the Expo Axis - an area of the park notorious for its lack of passing trade where rent costs shops 360,000 yuan ($53,148) per month.

The chain is now struggling to see the value of the 30 million yuan ($4.43 million) in sponsorship fees it paid to set up inside the park.

During the first two months of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the bakery has lost some 2.61 million yuan ($385,325) from its four stores inside the park, with its main store losing approximately 700,000 yuan ($103,344) per month, according to the manager of Christine's Expo stores, a woman surnamed Hang, who declined to provide her full name.

"We weren't expecting so few visitors," she told the Global Times Sunday. "We were told that visitors would not be allowed to bring food into the park, so we thought sales would be much higher."

The bakery, which has locations throughout the city, sells freshly-baked bread in the park daily from upwards of 4 yuan ($0.59) a piece, as well as 9-inch pizzas at 35 yuan ($5.17) each.

"We misjudged the situation," she said. "Opening bakeries inside the park is far different to opening one on Nanjing Road because there's no previous experience to draw from when projecting revenues."

Hang said that its flagship Expo Park store was successful in boosting sales after it ordered staff to sell pizzas to queuing visitors at pavilions one day last month around noon. Staff sold some 500 pizzas, but were forced to stop by Expo staff.

According to Lin Shengyong, director of the business management department for the Shanghai World Expo Coordination Bureau, selling food to visitors lining up at pavilions is too risky where public health is concerned.

"There's no way to ensure food safety," he told the Global Times Sunday. "Things would also get too chaotic with hundreds of restaurants inside the park starting to sell food under the sun in the hot weather."

Lin said, however, that efforts have been made by organizers to aid businesses that are situated in less desirable locations. He said that maps pointing out their locations have been made, around 50,000 of which are distributed daily to Expo visi-tors. He added that organizers reduced their 8 percent rake-off to 3 percent in May to help with the costs of running a business inside the park.

DainTihill, another Taiwanese eatery on the lower level of the Expo Axis, said it has lowered the price of its set meals from 100 yuan ($14.76) to 60 yuan ($8.86) to make up for losses in May and June.

"Business has improved some, but we still have not recovered all our losses," a man surnamed Ni, manager of the Expo branch of the restaurant, told the Global Times Sunday. "We're not asking to make a huge profit off the Expo, but we at least need to break even."

So far, some 21.6 million visitors have dined at restaurants inside the park since opening, while restaurant sales have reached about 1 billion yuan ($147.6 million) over the past three months.