Fast food in the Netherlands: a stable market, with competition playing out at brand level
Fast food plays a central role in everyday consumption in the Netherlands.
Between 2024 and 2025, millions of visits were distributed across international fast food chains and a wide landscape of locally rooted concepts.
Using Accurat’s AI-powered market research, we analysed fast food visits in the Netherlands shortly after the period ended. The analysis looks at both all fast food consumers and a purpose-built segment of fast food lovers, defined as consumers who visit a fast food restaurant at least once per month.
Local chip shops were grouped into a single store group, together with Dutch chains such as Foodmaster, Kwalitaria, ’t Bakhuus, Febo and Bram Ladage. This makes it possible to structurally compare local players with international chains such as McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza, Subway, KFC and Burger King.
Local heroes versus international players: a stable balance
At group level, the Dutch fast food market shows little structural movement.
International fast food chains account for around 90% of all fast food visits, while local heroes represent roughly 10%. This balance remains largely unchanged between 2024 and 2025.
The same stability is visible when looking at trends over time: neither group shows a clear upward or downward trajectory.
This indicates that, in the Netherlands, competitive dynamics are not driven by shifts between local and international players, but rather by changes at brand level.
In the Netherlands, the competitive story in fast food is not about local players versus international chains gaining or losing ground. The real differences emerge when you look at how individual brands perform within a very stable market structure.
Brand-level dynamics reveal where competition really happens
When zooming in on individual brands, clearer contrasts emerge.
McDonald’s remains by far the largest fast food brand in the Netherlands, accounting for around one third of all fast food visits. Its visit share remains broadly stable over time, underlining its role as a structural anchor of the market.
Domino’s Pizza and Subway also capture substantial shares at total market level, positioning them among the leading international players.
When local chip shops are grouped together, they reach a visit share that is comparable to several international chains individually. Their share fluctuates slightly from period to period, but without a clear directional trend.
Dutch chains such as Kwalitaria, Foodmaster, ’t Bakhuus, Febo and Bram Ladage remain smaller at brand level, but collectively contribute to the local embeddedness and diversity of the market.
Fast food lovers show a distinct brand pattern
When focusing exclusively on fast food lovers, a different picture emerges.
Within this highly engaged segment, pizza-focused brands such as Domino’s Pizza and New York Pizza account for a clearly higher share of visits than in the total market, highlighting their strong position among regular consumers.
McDonald’s shows a slightly lower share within the fast food lover segment compared with its total market position, indicating that its strength lies more in broad reach than in over-indexing on the most frequent visitors.
Local chip shops and Dutch chains remain present among fast food lovers, but their share is somewhat lower than in the total market, suggesting that their relevance is stronger among less frequent consumption moments.
This confirms that segment choice materially affects how brand performance should be interpreted.
Visit frequency in 2025: brand-level differences
Looking specifically at visit frequency in 2025, clear differences appear between brands.
McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza show the highest average visit frequency per visitor, indicating a strong repeat component at brand level.
Local chip shops, analysed at individual location level, sit in the middle of the frequency distribution, combining regular visits with a more fragmented structure.
Most Dutch chains display lower average visit frequencies, reflecting more occasional usage patterns.
This illustrates once again that visit share and visit frequency describe different dimensions of brand performance.
What this tells us about fast food competition in the Netherlands
Three insights stand out:
- The Dutch fast food market is structurally stable at group level
- Brand-level dynamics explain most competitive differences
- Fast food lovers form a distinct segment with its own brand hierarchy
By grouping local chip shops into a single store group and analysing a purpose-built segment of fast food lovers, this study shows how AI-powered behavioural insight reveals competitive dynamics that brand rankings alone cannot capture.