Café Coffee Day (CCD), which is a part of Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company, is betting big on the food segment.
“Coffee Day, which retails both beverages and food items, sees 30 per cent of its business from the food segment. We are already a market leader in coffee beverages, and are planning to add more menus to the food category,” K Ramakrishnan, president (marketing), Cafe Coffee Day, told mediapersons here. CCD offers food items including pasta, sandwiches and biryani.
The coffee major has charted out expansion plans over the next 2-3 years. It would take its total coffee outlets to 2,000 from the existing 1,270 by 2014, including setting up of 150 lounges (current 35) and doubling its highway cafes to 96 (current 48) during that time, Ramakrishnan said. Each outlet costs around Rs 50 lakh.
Ramakrishnan was here to launch the ‘scholar hunt’ programme — a Rs 5-crore scholarship initiative of Coffee Day and FLAME (Foundation for Liberal and Management Education) for students seeking under graduate and post graduate programme in several fields.
“We operate under three formats (CCD cafe, lounges and squares) and six verticals -- high street, educational institutes, corporate, transportation hub, highways and tourist hubs. We are looking for new verticals along with scouting for new locations for expansion,” he said.
The coffee consumption in India is very low compared with other countries globally. The per capita consumption of coffee in India is just 82 grams, whereas it is 4 kg in the US and 4.8 kg in Brazil. “With these numbers, there is a huge market opportunity for coffee players in the market,” he said.
The company does not see the entry of global coffee players like Starbucks into the Indian marketas a competition. Instead, it believes it would create new benchmarks and markets.
