Retail Expansion: What JOE & THE JUICE and L'Osteria Won't Change

JOE & THE JUICE wants to double its global footprint. L'Osteria is growing through franchises and joint ventures. Granado is taking a 156-year-old Brazilian brand deeper into international markets. At NRF Europe in Paris, their growth leaders revealed a common lesson: crossing a border is only the beginning. The real challenge is building enough scale to justify the investment without adapting away the identity that made the brand worth exporting.

There is a seductive simplicity to international expansion: find a promising market, open a store, introduce the brand and grow.

The reality is considerably messier.

A market can have wealthy consumers and still be too small. Customers can demand a brand and still not create enough store potential to justify entering. A local partner can accelerate expansion but weaken consistency. And adapting a concept to local tastes can improve relevance right up until the point where the brand stops feeling like itself.

Those tensions were at the centre of an NRF Europe discussion in Paris. The panel brought together Sebastian Vestergaard, Chief Growth Officer at JOE & THE JUICE; Sissi Freeman, Sales & Marketing Director at Granado Pharmácias; and Fabien Stutz, Chief Growth & Development Officer at L'Osteria. It was moderated by retail specialist and VarejoCast podcaster Caio Camargo.

The three businesses could hardly be more different. JOE & THE JUICE is a Danish food and beverage concept racing towards global scale. Granado is a Brazilian beauty and fragrance business whose history stretches back to 1870. L'Osteria is a Munich-based restaurant group expanding through a mixture of company-operated restaurants, franchises and joint ventures.

Yet their answers repeatedly converged around the same idea.

International growth is not about opening in every market where demand exists. It is about knowing where a brand can build something sustainable.

Density Over Flags

JOE & THE JUICE has already passed 500 stores globally. Its next ambition is considerably larger.

Vestergaard told the NRF Europe audience that the company is working towards 1,000 stores by 2028. The next phase of growth will rely on a deliberate mix of formats. Roughly 70 to 80% will be standard rollout stores, around 10% flagships, and the remainder what he called micro hubs and unique opportunities.

But doubling the estate does not mean opening wherever there is customer demand.

Vestergaard said the company looks for markets where consumers are actively asking for the brand, but demand alone is insufficient. JOE needs to see a path to scale, with a team able to follow up and build the market over time.

That is why an apparently attractive market can still be rejected.

Vestergaard used Luxembourg as an example. On paper, the market fits. Consumers travel internationally, purchasing power is strong and the customer profile makes sense for JOE & THE JUICE.

But opening an entirely new country creates infrastructure, staffing and operating costs. If the realistic opportunity is only a handful of stores, Vestergaard would rather direct those resources towards a market where JOE can build greater density. For now, JOE is staying out of Luxembourg, though he said it will enter once it has the scale and the team to support it.

That is a useful counterpoint to the way retail expansion is often measured.

Opening in another country creates a headline. Density creates a business.

The Spanish Test

JOE & THE JUICE's latest expansion provides a timely example.

Just days after the NRF Europe discussion, on 23 September, the company opened its first Spanish store in Madrid, at Velázquez 128.

It is not treating Madrid as a one-off flagship. JOE has entered Spain through a franchise partnership with Food Quest Restaurants Management, under a long-term plan targeting 80 stores across the country over the next decade. Barcelona and the Costa del Sol are among the markets expected to follow.

That is much closer to the model Vestergaard described on stage. Enter when there is a credible path to scale, use a partner when local knowledge materially improves the opportunity, and build enough density for the cost of entering the country to make sense.

JOE's operating model changes depending on the market. Vestergaard said the company prefers direct operation where it can scale, learn and replicate within the same region. In Europe, for example, its Paris team can manage Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and even Monaco.

Where regulation, administration or local complexity becomes more significant, a partner with local knowledge becomes more valuable.

The question is therefore not whether franchising or company ownership is universally better. It is which structure gives the brand the best combination of control, local knowledge and scalability.

Home First

Granado's internationalisation story starts from a very different position.

The company was founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1870 and built generations of domestic recognition before making international expansion a priority.

That history creates an advantage in Brazil. Freeman said Brazilians do not generally need an introduction to Granado. The brand is part of the country's cultural memory, passed between generations.

Internationally, none of that familiarity can be assumed.

Granado spent years strengthening its domestic position before accelerating overseas. Freeman said the company wanted to be present in almost every Brazilian state before pushing internationally, because the authenticity of being genuinely Brazilian was central to the proposition.

That becomes especially important when Brazilians living abroad encounter the stores. They photograph them, give Granado products as gifts and act as ambassadors for the brand.

In effect, the diaspora becomes part of the international marketing engine.

For Granado, exporting the brand means exporting its provenance too.

The Store as Storyteller

That is one reason Granado places so much importance on physical retail.

In Brazil, heritage is already understood. In Paris, London, Lisbon or New York, the store has to communicate it.

Freeman described stores as essential places for educating new customers about the quality of the products. The objective is consistency. A shopper entering Granado in Brazil should recognise the experience when entering one in Lisbon or Madrid.

But consistency does not mean stripping out local context. Granado uses Brazilian art, music and window displays brought from Brazil to turn its stores into expressions of the culture behind the products.

That is an important distinction.

International retail often treats localisation as changing the brand to fit the market. Granado's approach is almost the reverse: the store is used to make the original brand understandable in a new market.

Change the Story, Not the Product

Granado does adapt. But Freeman was clear that the company does not change its products or its store experience. What changes is the storytelling around them.

In London, where Granado has a store on the King's Road, the brand takes part in the Chelsea Flower Show with a tropical twist. In Paris, it has worked with local cafés and food businesses. One collaboration created a dessert inspired by one of its fragrances. Another, launched during NRF Europe week, created sorbets inspired by its fig and raspberry scents.

The most successful idea began in Brazil, where Granado opened an ice cream pop-up in its flagships with flavours inspired by its fragrances. The concept performed strongly enough to remain open, with a new flavour for every product launch. It has since been taken to New York and Paris.

This creates a useful model for localisation. The core product remains recognisable, while the story surrounding it becomes locally relevant.

For heritage brands in particular, that can be safer than repeatedly reformulating the proposition for every market.

What Partners Can Change

For L'Osteria, the tension becomes particularly visible through partnerships.

L'Osteria operates more than 200 restaurants across Europe and is still expanding.

Its growth model includes company-operated restaurants, franchises and joint ventures. That creates an obvious question: if somebody else operates the restaurant, how does L'Osteria remain L'Osteria?

Stutz's answer effectively divides the business into two categories. Some things can adapt. Others cannot.

Local partners understand real estate, traffic patterns, eating occasions and competitors better than a central team in another country. They know whether Sunday lunch or Tuesday dinner will drive trade, and which locations will become genuine food destinations. They need enough autonomy to use that knowledge.

But L'Osteria retains control over supply chain, food quality, operating processes, reporting and staff training. Most importantly, it protects the brand experience.

That is the bargain behind a successful franchise or joint venture. The partner contributes knowledge the brand does not possess. The brand protects the elements the partner should not reinvent.

When the Menu Moves

There are limits to global consistency, and food is particularly exposed to them.

Stutz acknowledged that L'Osteria needs to adapt recipes and ingredients when local regulations, culture or consumer preferences require it. India would call for spicier flavours, while in the Middle East some ingredients, including alcohol, would need to be removed.

Promotions do not always travel either. L'Osteria was running a month of truffle pizzas at the time of the session, an offer Stutz said would mean nothing to consumers in the Middle East.

But Stutz drew a line between adapting the offer and changing the identity. That became one of the clearest points of agreement on the panel.

Both L'Osteria and JOE & THE JUICE identified over-adaptation as the greater danger.

The 10% Rule

For Vestergaard, a JOE & THE JUICE customer should recognise the experience whether they are in Paris or New York.

Some menu variation is inevitable. He estimated that around 10% of the offer might change to accommodate market requirements.

The rest of the experience needs to feel unmistakably JOE. That includes the products, the atmosphere and, importantly, the people behind the counter.

The company's employees, known as Juicers, are a central part of the proposition. Vestergaard said maintaining their energy is one of the hardest things to scale as the estate grows from 500 stores towards 1,000. That is why JOE pays close attention to training every Juicer in every location.

Stutz made a similar point. Adapting too far risks diluting the brand in an effort to please the local consumer, until the experience that made it distinctive is lost.

Scale therefore creates a paradox. The faster a distinctive concept expands, the harder it becomes to preserve the distinctiveness that enabled the expansion.

Partner Before Country

The panel also challenged another common assumption about international growth: that market attractiveness should come first.

For L'Osteria, purchasing power, population, tourism and market potential all matter. But if expansion depends on a franchise or joint venture, Stutz said alignment around customer experience and the brand is critical.

The partner can decide whether a market is worth entering at all. Stutz said small markets with limited potential and no suitable partner are a no-go, because setting up an entity would demand too much energy and cost. Large markets such as the US or the Middle East would become a priority if the right partner emerged.

Granado faces a similar calculation. Freeman pointed to the Middle East as a region where the brand sees considerable demand, but where its preference for company-owned stores creates a constraint. Entering would likely require a local partner.

The US provides another example of deliberate patience. Granado entered only around two years ago, after concentrating on making its model work in France first. Freeman said the company thinks long term and did not want its team trying to build Europe and the US at the same time.

Sometimes the strategic decision is not no. It is not yet.

Opening Day Is Not the Finish Line

Freeman made perhaps the simplest point of the discussion, and one of the most important.

Retailers become excited about openings. The store launches, the photos are taken and the market appears on the brand map.

But then the expensive part begins.

Freeman said many retailers focus so heavily on opening that they forget what comes next. They run out of product or stop investing in media and marketing. Her advice was that retailers need to ask whether they are prepared not only to open a store, but to maintain it and build the market around it.

That changes the economics of expansion. A successful international opening is not a launch event. It is the beginning of a long-term customer acquisition problem.

Critical Mass

By the end of the NRF Europe discussion, all three growth models had arrived at essentially the same principle.

Granado emphasised the ability to sustain the market after launch. JOE & THE JUICE emphasised scalability, with Vestergaard arguing that entering a country for a single store is rarely worth the expense. L'Osteria emphasised critical mass, partner quality and sustainable economics.

Together, they offer a useful alternative to measuring international retail success by country count. A flag on a map says very little about the quality of an expansion strategy.

The more important questions are harder. Can the market support enough locations to absorb the cost of entry? Does a partner genuinely understand the brand? Which parts of the proposition can change, and which must never change?

And after opening day, is the company prepared to keep investing until the brand actually belongs in the market?

For JOE & THE JUICE, the destination is 1,000 stores. But Vestergaard's comments suggest that the number itself is not the hardest part. The harder task is reaching it without creating 1,000 different interpretations of JOE & THE JUICE.

Granado faces the same question with a Brazilian identity built over more than a century. L'Osteria faces it every time another partner takes responsibility for representing the brand.

That may be the real discipline behind international retail expansion.

Crossing the border is the visible part. Building enough scale to stay there, while still looking and feeling like the brand customers wanted in the first place, is the part that determines whether expansion actually worked.

Sources

This article is based on a panel discussion at NRF 2026: Retail's Big Show Europe in Paris featuring Sebastian Vestergaard of JOE & THE JUICE, Sissi Freeman of Granado Pharmácias and Fabien Stutz of L'Osteria, moderated by Caio Camargo. It also draws on JOE & THE JUICE's public announcements, including its store #501 announcement, and Europa Press and Just Retail coverage of its Spanish launch with Food Quest Restaurants Management.