Now, more coffee breaks in Punjab

Coffee culture is fast catching up in Punjab. The young of the region perceive coffee bars as pubs where, over coffee, they can have fruitful discussion, indoor games, and relax in a tasteful ambience.

Naresh Malhotra, chief executive officer of Café Coffee Day, was in Chandigarh. He says Punjab, Uttaranchal, and Chandigarh have shown an "amazing" response to coffee bars in a very short span.

"We have opened 12 coffee bars in seven cities of the region in the past one year, and plan to add a substantial number of outlets next year," he said. He said Punjab had five cafes, and Café Coffee Day had opened a second outlet in Jalandhar because it offered a lucrative market.

He says the firm has plans to increase the number of outlets from 168 in 43 cities to 200 by December. The firm also plans to foray into the Middle East, China, and Europe by opening 50 cafes in 10 cities by March next year.

This 130-year-old company has coffee gardens of 5,000 acres in Chikmagalore, Karnataka.

Café Coffee Day is part of India's largest coffee conglomerate, Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Limited, a Rs 300-crore, ISO 9002 company, which is providing employment to about 12,000 people. The company introduced the "coffee bar" concept in India about 50 years ago, with its first café in Bangalore.

Barrista has three outlets in Chandigarh and one in Shimla, and is expanding. Marketing head Brotin Banerjee told Business Standard Barrista planned to open six stores in the region by the end of the year. Cities like Ludhiana, Amritsar, and Jalandhar would be on the priority list, he added, after having done thorough market research.

The market in Punjab is segmented, and different segments are catching up with globalistion trends. This is helped by the fact that people have higher disposable income. "So the time is ripe to penetrate into the state. We will be present in almost all the important towns of Punjab by the end of this financial year," Banerjee said.

According to him, Barrista is the only company to use 100 per cent Arabica coffee. It sources coffee from South Africa and the gardens of the Tatas in Kanataka and Tamil Nadu.

A Punjab University professor says since Chandigarh has a large young population because of the good number of educational institutes, business prospects for the coffee outlets are very bright.