Amalgated to up presence in branded coffee

Plans India's largest coffee bar in Bangalore

Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company (ABC), the Rs 300 crore firm known better for its Cafe Coffee Day outlets, plans to increase its presence in the branded retail coffee market.

The company which has a brand, Dark Forest, will add two more brands - Monsoon Malabar and Mysore Royale, falling under the pure coffee category.

In addition to this extension, the company plans to add another 300 Coffee Day outlets by end 2007, taking the total count to 500. It also plans to set up 50 international cafes in five cities by 2006. Plus, the company will shortly open India's largest coffee centric cafe spread over 5,000 square feet in Bangalore.

The company currently owns 5,000 acres of coffee estates besides managing an additional 40,000 acres, exporting a total of 30,000 tones of coffee annually. Altogether 12 tonnes is consumed by its Coffee Day outlets.

Amalgamated Bean has also been reaping the benefit of the recent increase in coffee prices and plans to end the current fiscal at export revenues of close to Rs 200 crore from the earlier Rs 100 crore. The company's increased focus on its retail operations will see this division contributing close to 50 per cent of the topline during next year.

Amalgamated Bean Coffee currently on an average opens close to six Coffee Day outlets each month spending close to Rs 20-25 lakh per outlet and plans to fund the expansion plans through internal accruals and debt.

The company which had placed 25 per cent stake to AIG Investments for $15 million, is in the process of buying back that stake and will shortly complete this process.

The company currently has one overseas outlet in Dubai and plans to set up five outlets in Vienna, considered to be coffee capital of the world.

Opening the company's 200th outlet in Bangalore on Wednesday, V G Siddhartha, chairman, Amalgamated Bean said: "I had this great desire to offer people across all age groups in our country a perfect place where they could sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee in a relaxed, youthful ambience. There is much more room to be of service to our customers and therefore I would like to look at this 200th cafe milestone as the beginning of many more years of enhancing the coffee experience."