Every summer, Sahel produces a flood of numbers – outlets opening, transactions rising or falling, sales totals that move in different directions depending on which slice you look at. It’s easy to read a headline stat and walk away with the wrong picture.
So this year, we decided to filter for one thing only: numbers that compare the same outlets and the same customers, summer over summer. Not the biggest totals available – the ones that actually tell you whether the coast’s existing business is getting stronger.
Here’s what we found.
Summer 2026 at a glance
- 16.7%Growth in unique customersYear over year, at the same outlets with consistent customer tracking.
- 2 → 3Average items per transactionBasket size across Foodics-powered establishments.
- 54%Expansion in established brands’ footprintOver two years, for brands active on the coast for three consecutive years.
- 37%Growth in Foodics-powered outletsYear over year, across Ras El Hekma, Dabaa and Fouka.
More people came back – and they came back more often
Among outlets that were already on Foodics in both 2025 and 2026, unique customers grew 16.7% year over year. We measured this only among merchants whose customer-tracking was consistent across both summers, so we’re confident this reflects real people returning – not businesses simply logging more customer records than they used to.
That’s a meaningful number on its own. It’s an even better one when you remember it’s measuring the coast’s existing base, not new outlets padding the count.
Bigger baskets, familiar favorites
The average basket size across Foodics-powered establishments rose from two items per transaction to three. Unlike sales or ticket value, this reflects an actual increase in the number of items ordered — people aren’t just paying more per visit, they’re ordering more.
At the same time, familiar categories continue to drive activity, with coffee leading summer sales, followed by pizza and burgers. Together, these trends create an opportunity for operators to build on what customers already enjoy through complementary items, seasonal additions and smart menu combinations that encourage bigger baskets.
Established brands are doubling down
The clearest vote of confidence in the Sahel’s future is coming from the operators who know it best. Brands that have run outlets on the coast continuously for three straight years grew their footprint by 54% in just two years.
Expansion at that scale usually follows demand, not the other way around. These are operators reinvesting in a market they already understand, at a pace that suggests they’re seeing something worth betting on.
A new map of the coast is taking shape
Some of the most interesting activity this summer wasn’t in Sahel’s established hubs at all. Foodics-powered outlets in Ras El Hekma, Dabaa and Fouka grew 37% year over year, pointing to growing F&B activity across these emerging destinations.
These areas line up closely with Egypt’s officially announced Northwestern Coast development strategy, a government plan running through 2030 that identifies them as priority development zones, with hotels, infrastructure and a stated goal of turning the coast into a year-round economy.
That’s not a coincidence we’d bet against. As government-backed development lands in these newer zones, we’re seeing operators position early, right alongside it.
A market finding its next phase
Put together, this isn’t a story about the Sahel being simply bigger or smaller than last summer. It’s a story about the fundamentals compounding quietly: more repeat customers, bigger orders, established operators reinvesting – while the map of the coast itself expands to keep pace with where Egypt’s next wave of development is heading.
We’ll be watching how these newer zones perform as that development comes online, and we’ll share what we see.
Figures on customer growth and operator footprint expansion are drawn from the Foodics Egypt Summer data 2026, measured on a like-for-like basis across outlets active in both 2025 and 2026. References to Egypt’s coastal development strategy are drawn from public government sources.
