llaollao Brand Guidelines: The Frozen Yogurt Chain From a 2009 Shop in Dénia

An engineer, a coastal town and a family trade.

llaollao, which writes its name in lower case, opened its first shop in Dénia, on the Alicante coast of Spain, in June 2009. Spanish Wikipedia names the founder as Pedro Espinosa Martínez, an industrial engineer from the Murcia region who left a job at the oil company BP to open a shop specialising in frozen yogurt. Speaking to El Español in March 2021, Espinosa said he had been working as an engineer for a multinational in Madrid, wanted to return to Murcia and, because his family had a background in ice cream, planned an outlet or two to make a living from. He told the paper that he had looked at premises in both Dénia and Benidorm, and that the busy tourist town of Dénia became a shop window for future franchisees from Madrid, Valencia and Ibiza. English Wikipedia places the first outlet in Murcia instead; Spanish Wikipedia, El Español and Libertad Digital all give Dénia.

The name is pronounced roughly “yao yao”, according to English Wikipedia. The franchise model followed within a year: Libertad Digital reported in August 2013 that the first franchised unit opened in 2010 and that the chain already had more than 100 shops in 13 countries. Spanish Wikipedia dates the first shops in Valencia and Madrid to 2010, followed by Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Andalusia, and gives more than ninety Spanish shops by 2013.

In 2021 the business was in family hands. In the El Español interview Espinosa described himself as owner and chief executive and said that he and his two parents each held a third of the company, which worked from two offices, in Murcia and Madrid. Cinco Días reported in November 2026 that the group’s results are consolidated in a holding company called Madmen HR, and named the chain’s finance director as its spokesman on growth.

Tubs, Sanums and a counter of cut fruit.

The product is frozen yogurt made with skimmed milk, finished with toppings at a counter. English Wikipedia describes the toppings as running from freshly cut seasonal fruit to cereals, crunchy pieces and a selection of sauces, and names the Sanum as the signature item: a layered tub of yogurt with fresh fruit, granola or crushed biscuit and a drizzle of sauce. El Español reported in 2021 that the possible combinations ran to more than 11,000. Spanish Wikipedia adds slushes and milkshakes, granizados and batidos, to the menu, and English Wikipedia says the chain added fondue and smoothies at its Houston outlet in October 2019.

Formats vary by site. When llaollao opened its first United States outlet at the Houston Galleria on 16 November 2018, English Wikipedia says, it was a smaller Petit unit that did not carry the full Spanish menu but still sold tubs and Sanums. The same source says that in July 2015 the company widened its menu with additional sauces and crunchy toppings, and that by then the franchise had created around 1,000 jobs in the five years since it began franchising.

Recognition came early in the chain’s life. English Wikipedia records that in 2013 the Sandwich & Snack Show Academy named llaollao among twelve business concepts of the year and that the Spanish business magazine Actualidad Económica gave it its newcomer award, and that in 2014 it received the Startex award. Libertad Digital, interviewing a Madrid franchisee in August 2013, described a model in which owners could run two shopping-centre outlets with a permanent team of five people that grew to fourteen in summer.

How dessert chains present themselves.

Ice cream, gelato and frozen-yogurt chains sell something that melts within minutes, so much of their identity sits in the shop itself. The counter, the cabinet of flavours, the cone and the cup are the brand’s most visible surfaces, and the companies’ own pages tend to describe their shops, their kitchens and their ingredients before anything else.

Serving style can become a signature. Amorino, the Paris gelato chain, shapes its gelato into a flower with a spatula, according to French Wikipedia, and in 2012 the business magazine Capital described its shops in tobacco tones rather than the bright white then common among its rivals. The guides in this series look at how each chain describes its own counters, cups and cones, in the words the companies publish.

Names carry a lot of the work. Gelato chains may keep Italian flavour names on their menus, as Capital reported of Amorino, and some chains tie their story to one place. Grom, the Turin gelateria, describes its history through a single founding square, Piazza Paleocapa, and a single central laboratory near the city, and says its shops churn the gelato each day.

Ownership is part of the story too. Some chains grow through franchising, some stay with their founders, and others pass into large groups: Unilever announced its purchase of Grom in 2015, and Grom says it has been part of The Magnum Ice Cream Company since 2025. Each guide in this series sets out who founded the brand, who owns it now and where its products are made, and marks clearly what rests on the company’s own word.

From the Costa Blanca to Kuala Lumpur and Manila.

Growth abroad has made Asia llaollao’s largest region. El Español reported in 2021 that the chain opened 51 shops in 2020, a record for the company, including its first in Australia, Austria and Brunei. By November 2026, Cinco Días reported, the network had 470 points of sale: 137 in Spain and 250 in Asia, made up of 127 in Malaysia, 110 in the Philippines and 13 in Singapore, with a growing Latin American presence of 22 shops in El Salvador, nine in Chile and first openings in Honduras and, in October 2026, Venezuela. The same report said the company was opening mainly its own shops and turning to local partners where a market called for them.

Partnerships in Asia have not all lasted. English Wikipedia records that on 7 December 2017 the Singapore master franchisee, D+1, ended its agreement and moved its 29 stores to another frozen-yogurt name, Yole, and that llaollao returned to Singapore on 16 June 2018 under a new master franchisee, Manna. In Malaysia, the fertiliser group Hextar Industries agreed in February 2026 to buy 51 per cent of Woodpeckers Group, which runs llaollao outlets across the country, The Star reported on 12 February 2026; the Malaysian news agency Bernama reported on 14 September 2026 that the agreement had lapsed after some of its conditions were not met.

For a design guide, llaollao shows how a lower-case name, a signature tub and a counter of cut fruit can carry a brand from one seaside shop to three continents. Compare it with Yogurtland, a self-serve chain from California, and with Pinkberry. For this guide we use a leaf green, a yogurt white and a berry red with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep llaollao’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.