Raya Restaurants, one of the subsidiaries of Raya Holding for Financial Investments, signed a master franchise agreement in the Egyptian market with the Australian specialty gourmet food retail and award-winning café, Jones the Grocer. 

Established in 1996 in Australia, Jones the Grocer has stores in Cambodia, Singapore, Qatar and the UAE. Jones the Grocer is a food emporium featuring specialty food retail, a signature walk-in cheese room, a charcuterie, bakery, patisserie and deli set within an award-winning café. There are 21 Jones the Grocer stores across the world. 

Medhat Khalil, chairman of Raya Holding for Financial Investments, expressed his delight towards the signing of the master franchise agreement with Jones the Grocer, which chose Raya Restaurants to represent the brand in the Egyptian market. Moreover, the Egyptian company assures its trust in Jones the Grocer, to become the choice of customers seeking a unique and special experience to satisfy their needs for the highest quality products in Egypt and around the globe.

The first two Jones the Grocer flagship stores will be at Galleria 40 Mall – in Sheikh Zayed and at the O1 Mall – New Cairo. They will feature gourmet grocery retail, a halal charcuterie, a bakery and patisserie, Jones the Grocer’s hallmark artisan cheese-room and an outdoor terrace which will set the benchmark for store design and gourmet food retail in Cairo, Egypt. 

In conjunction to the established Jones the Grocer formats, the multi-store roll out across Egypt also encompasses the incredibly successful Jones the Grocer Express, a compact gourmet ‘grab and go’ offer tailored for high traffic travel such as airports and commercial hubs. 

Raya Holding is planning to increase its direct investment during the coming five years, with an investment equal to 150 million Egyptian pounds. 

Karim Nayef Khalife, chief executive officer of Raya Restaurants’ said: “We, at Raya Restaurants, are welcoming and are looking forward to partner with Jones the Grocer and its high-end offerings. By incorporating the brand to Raya Restaurants’ portfolio, we are confirming our business strategy of strengthening our offerings and positioning in the Egyptian market. We are assertive that Jones the Grocer’s journey in Egypt will be an added value to the F&B sector in Egypt, enabling us to reach out to potential customers and enhance the customers’ dining experience.” 

Yunib Siddiqui, chief executive officer of Jones the Grocer, said “We’ve come a long way since our first ever store in Sydney, Australia twenty-two years ago and our first opening in the Middle East in Abu Dhabi in 2009. We’re thrilled to work with Raya Restaurants and look forward to building an incredibly successful stores with their team across Egypt over the next few years.”