Barista plans new stores in east

Barista Coffee Company is set to build up its presence in eastern India by beefing up its presence in Kolkata and opening stores in other cities in the region.

The company would add upto four outlets in Kolkata by the end of the financial year and introduce new formats like large stores spread over 2,000 square feet.

Barista's new stores would come up in cities like Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Jamshedpur and Ranchi.

Brotin Banerjee, chief operating officer (COO) of Barista, said the expansion plan in the east would be completed by the end of this financial year.

The investment required for a typical Barista outlet would be between Rs 20-22 lakh per but large format stores could cost more.

Barista had identified locations for the stores and would finalise them shortly.

At present, it operated seven outlets in Kolkata, out of 120 outlets nationally.

Bhubaneshwar and Guwahati outlets were expected to come up in two months.

The company clocked growth of 50 per cent in revenues in the last year, out of which same store growth accounted for 22 per cent.

Balance growth came from new stores.

Banerjee did not give growth projections for the current fiscal but said the main growth drivers in the current fiscal would be new formats, kiosks and highway outlets at petrol pumps.

The company has tied up with IOC for the Delhi-Agra and Delhi-Chandigarh highways and was talking to other petroleum majors for similar tie-ups.

Barista would also look at outlets in airports.

Food would become a major stream of revenue for the company.

At present, a third of the company's revenues came from food.