Cookie Man to step up presence

Australian cookie retail chain Cookie Man plans to increase its presence in India from the existing 14 stores to 350 over the next five years.

Speaking to Business Standard, John Lynch, chairman, Cookie Man India, said these stores would be called Cookie Man stores and Cookie Man express outlets. "We expect the breakup between the main stores and the express outlets to be 100-250," he said.

The express chain aims at catering to consumers in non-traditional, non-mall areas. At present the company has a presence in six cities through 14 stores which it plans to expand to Indore and Ahmedabad over the next year.

Though the company has been in India since 2000, it has been slow in expanding. Lynch justifies this saying that since Cookie Man is essentially a mall business they initially took time since there weren't as many malls coming up.

"Ever since the new malls have started coming up our growth has been rapid. We have already signed up with 35 malls over the next two years," he says.

It took some time to put into place the supply chain management and logistics, which are essential in this business. But with that taken care of, the company is optimistic about their prospects in India.

Lynch says that the volume of sales in fact is higher in India than Australia. Since the company follows the franchisee model, most of their outlets manage to break even within the first year, says Lynch, adding that so far they have no competition in India in this particular stream of business. At present the company retails over 50 varieties of cookies.