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Sudha Menon

Pune , June 15

FOOD and beverage retail chain Coffee Day Xpress is stepping up its operations in the domestic market.

The chain, a division of the Rs 250-crore Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company, has crossed the 300-kiosks mark in 13 cities in just over two years and is now aiming at the 500-kiosks mark by the end of the current fiscal.

"By 2008 we want to have 1,000 outlets in place,'' Coffee Day Xpress President, Mr Sandip Mukherjee, told Business Line.

Mr Mukherjee's growth plan is based on the fact that almost all the players in the country's rapidly growing coffee market are premium lifestyle brands, which leave out a bulk of the potential market untapped. "Our positioning as a value-for-money yet aspirational chain, offering coffee and snacks in hygienic conditions and a pleasant ambience, will get the foot falls in,'' Mr Mukherjee said.

The company is in the process of rolling out its retail outlets across a range of second-tier cities and the towns in their vicinity. In Pune, for instance, the company has 19 kiosks now and is planning to step this up to 34 by March next.

"Not everyone wants to shell out Rs 60-plus for a coffee or a snack and we are the only organised player in the segment which serves a quick, value for money, hygienic meal in the grab-and-go segment,'' Mr Mukherjee said. The company is planning to roll out its kiosks in at least eight major cities including Mysore, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Ludhiana this fiscal and plans to take the concept to the East next year.

The chain's growth plan will leverage the burgeoning demand for convenience foods and eating-cum-shopping expeditions at destination malls that are mushrooming all over the country. Other destinations are the offices of the IT and ITES segment. The corporate sector already accounts for 80 per cent of the company's kiosks with Wipro, Infosys, Convergys, Kanbay, Cybage, Geometric Software and Msource on its regular clients list.

"With business now booming and companies on a recruitment spree, this segment of our business has huge potential,'' Mr Mukherjee said.

"With the domestic market keeping it busy at present, the company is not planning to go overseas but we will follow after Coffee Day starts its full-fledged operations on foreign shores.

We are already getting franchise enquiries from Bangladesh, Nepal, Dubai, Bahrain and Sri Lanka," he added.

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