Fressnapf | Maxi Zoo to open 3,000th store in France

Fressnapf | Maxi Zoo will open its 3,000th store in September, and the milestone will fall in France. Group founder Torsten Toeller told Handelsblatt that the 3,000th outlet would be a French opening. Maxi Zoo France has since said on LinkedIn that the store in question will at the same time be its 500th in the country.

The company has not named the location. Instead, it is inviting followers to guess, offering four clues: a town on the edge of Paris with one of the world's largest flea markets, a history in French film and television, and a role in the 2024 Olympic Games. Commenters read the clues as pointing to Saint-Ouen, which Maxi Zoo has not confirmed.

France is the group's third-largest national network by store count, behind Germany with just under 1,000 outlets and Italy, where Arcaplanet passed the 600 mark last autumn. The Krefeld-based group ended the 2025 financial year with 2,888 stores in 15 countries and reported 2,919 after 33 openings in the first quarter of 2026. Toeller said it is the clear number one in nine of those countries and among the top three in the remaining six. He put the expansion target at more than 150 new stores a year, around 20 of them in Germany, where he described the market as more mature. Poland, France and Italy remain the priorities, alongside the compact Urban Store format, which is being trialled in Paris and Copenhagen and reached Germany with a first outlet in Munich in August.