Bangalore-based Cafe Coffee Day chain, promoted by Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Ltd, is planning to set up 200 cafes across the country through an investment of almost Rs 100 crore by March 2004.
The company also sees big opportunity in vending machines and hopes to have 3,000 vending machines serving filter coffee by 2003 which would serve one million cups a day at prices on par with instant coffee.
"We currently 25 cafes and plan to open 30 more cafes by March 2002 at an investment of Rs 15 to 20 crore. We are targeting New Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan in the short term, while continuing to consolidate our position in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Mangalore. Post March 2002, we will look at expanding into western India," said Naresh Malhotra, director, Amalgamated Bean.
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The company spends around 2 per cent of its revenue on cross promotions with other lifestyle brands and regular events like art exhibitions and live music. "This is mainly to popularise coffee drinking, to draw traffic to cafes and to make the cafes a happening place for regulars," said Malhotra.
Cafe Coffee Day runs many types of cafes to address the various segments. "Most of our cafes are stand along cafes but we also have corporate cafes which are located in the premises of large office campuses like Infosys. In office campuses subsidized rates are worked out with the administration departments in lieu of rentals. Then we also have retail store where we conduct business in the premise of retailers like Music World, Pune. We also have cafes within food court where we have shared seating between several non-competing food and beverage outlets," said Malhotra.
The parent company of Caf