{"id":1828219,"date":"2026-10-19T12:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T10:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/news\/auntie-annes-ashford-container-site\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T11:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T09:32:13","slug":"auntie-annes-ashford-container-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/news\/auntie-annes-ashford-container-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Auntie Anne&#8217;s opens third UK container site in Ashford"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Auntie Anne&#8217;s, the soft pretzel and food-to-go brand, has opened its third UK container unit at Designer Outlet Ashford. The compact format needs less capital than a traditional shop, and the company says it will sit alongside shops and kiosks as it works towards 100 sites across the UK and Ireland by 2030.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>New site:<\/strong> Auntie Anne\u2019s has opened its third UK container unit, at Designer Outlet Ashford.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Earlier units:<\/strong> the first container opened at Cheshire Oaks in 2025, and the second in Canterbury.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Format:<\/strong> a lower-capital container unit, used alongside shops and kiosks.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Results:<\/strong> the brand says Cheshire Oaks \u201cperformed ahead of expectations\u201d. No trading figures are published.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Estate:<\/strong> 51 sites in the UK and Ireland, with a target of 100 by 2030.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Ashford unit follows a first container at Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet in 2025 and a second in Canterbury earlier this year. Hospitality and Catering News reported on 16 October that Ashford would open on Saturday 17 October, and QSR Media UK confirmed on 19 October that it has opened. The brand&#8217;s managing director for the UK and Ireland, Max Burton, said the Cheshire Oaks unit performed ahead of expectations, and that Ashford gives the company another chance to test where the format works best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/embed\/feed\/update\/urn:li:share:7294773734547021824?collapsed=1\" height=\"630\" width=\"504\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" title=\"Post int\u00e9gr\u00e9\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-primary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1\">How the container format works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company describes the container as a lower-capital format that opens up sites where a conventional shop would not fit. Teams make the dough from scratch each day and hand-roll and bake the pretzels in front of customers, which Burton said keeps the fresh preparation at the heart of the brand. Auntie Anne\u2019s has not published what a container costs to build or to run, nor how Cheshire Oaks compares with a conventional unit, though a format with no shop to fit out sits closer to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/articles\/low-cost-franchises\/\">low cost franchises in the UK<\/a> than a high street store does. It says only that the first container did better than it expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-primary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2\">A franchise route beyond the high street<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Burton said containers &#8220;offer another route for franchise partners to grow with us&#8221;. The company plans to use them alongside its shops and kiosks in high-footfall retail destinations, travel hubs and other non-traditional sites, formats several <a href=\"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/our-franchises\/bakery-pastry-shops\/\">bakery and pastry franchises<\/a> have moved towards. Two of the three container units are in Kent, at Canterbury and Ashford, and the first is in Cheshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Neither report says whether container units are run by franchise partners or by the company itself, or whether the format carries different fees from a traditional unit. The wording points to franchise partners as the intended operators of future containers, but the reports do not confirm who runs the three that are trading today. That distinction matters for anyone reading the openings as evidence of franchise growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-primary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3\">Estate and the 2030 target<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hospitality and Catering News counted 51 sites in the UK and Ireland after the Cardiff opening at St David&#8217;s Dewi Sant, which would leave 49 to open to reach the 2030 target of 100. The same outlet recorded the <a href=\"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/news\/auntie-annes-50th-site-eastbourne\/\">50th site in Eastbourne<\/a>, and an earlier plan to open ten stores in 2026.Shops, kiosks and containers are all expected to count towards the total, and the brand has not said how many of the remaining sites it expects to be containers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-primary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4\">What to watch next<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Burton described Ashford as a test of where the format works best, and Auntie Anne&#8217;s has not named further container sites. The markers to follow are the next container opening, the pace of new sites towards 100, and any trading figures the company chooses to publish for the three units. Until then, the only performance statement on record is Burton&#8217;s comment that Cheshire Oaks beat expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For franchise partners and prospective candidates, the practical gaps are the build cost of a container, the fees that apply to it and the sales it has taken, none of which the brand has put on the record in the coverage reviewed. Those are the figures that would let anyone compare a container with a shop or a kiosk, or against the brands publishing theirs in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/\">UK franchise directory<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><!--\n=== SOURCES ===\n- QSR Media UK, 19 October 2026 : https:\/\/qsrmedia.co.uk\/news\/auntie-annes-expands-container-format-ashford-opening\n- Hospitality and Catering News, 16 October 2026 : https:\/\/www.hospitalityandcateringnews.com\/2026\/10\/auntie-annes-to-open-third-container-site-at-designer-outlet-ashford\/\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Auntie Anne&#8217;s, the soft pretzel and food-to-go brand, has opened its third UK container unit at Designer Outlet Ashford. The compact format needs less capital than a traditional shop, and the company says it will sit alongside shops and kiosks as it works towards 100 sites across the UK and Ireland by 2030. The Ashford [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":994,"featured_media":1828257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"Auntie Anne's opens third UK container site in Ashford","_seopress_titles_desc":"Auntie Anne's has opened a third UK container unit at Designer Outlet Ashford, a lower-capital format as it works towards 100 UK and Ireland sites by 2030.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"content-type":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"1814875,1799445,1815430,1815533,1817827,1820539","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[801,3583],"tags":[],"type-de-post":[2066],"class_list":["post-1828219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneur-stories","category-entrepreneurship","type-de-post-articles-actualite"],"acf":[],"permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1828219"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1828296,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828219\/revisions\/1828296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1828257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1828219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1828219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1828219"},{"taxonomy":"type-de-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexpress-franchise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-de-post?post=1828219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}