Cafe Day plans more outlets

Café Coffee Day, a division of Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company, will set up over 100 cafes sporting an international look in the next one year.

The company plans to take its total number of cafes from the current 228 in 55 cities to 350 across 80 cities in a year, with an investment of 18-25 lakh on each new cafe. The first of the new-look cafes have already been set up in Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bangalore.

Sudipta Sen Gupta, senior general manager-marketing, Café Coffee Day, said, "All the new cafes will wear an international look. 30 per cent of them will also be in the lounge format occupying around 2,000 square feet. We will be catering to the same target segment and only want the satisfaction index to go up.''

Certain items, however, sold at the lounge cafes will be priced around Rs 5 higher than in the company's existing cafes.

The chain, which currently sees around 44 million footfalls per annum, aims at taking the number to 50 million in the next year. Its new strategy also involves a revamp of the menu to include diet foods and juices.

"At the core we still have coffee. But a cafe is not just about coffee-lovers anymore. We get a variety of people and diet is on the mind of every youngster today. So now we want to bring in the idea of health and freshness'', said Sen Gupta.

The Coffee Day group is also launching two premium powder coffee brands. Called Malabar Monsoon and Mysore Royal, the brands will be introduced by September.

The company has an existing brand in the premium coffee segment called Dark Forest.

In addition, the company has also relaunched its coffee powder brands, Arabica, Perfect and Charge, with new packaging. The three brands are priced at Rs 55, Rs 45 and Rs 35 respectively.

The company has also begun test marketing some new coffee-based products, including packaged decoction and chocolates in places such as Chandigarh, Pune and Goa apart from some of the metros. All the new products will be sold at the company's cafes only.

About the company's plan to launch its cafes overseas, Sen Gupta said the due diligence had been completed with regard to legal processes, local partners and locations in Austria, Middle East and China.

The coffee chain intends to open 50 cafes across 10 cities in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Egypt and south-east Asia by end-2005.