Café Coffee Day to tie up with retail chains

23 Sep 2009

After entering the cash-and- carry format, Café Coffee Day (CCD) plans to tie up with leading retail chains in the B2C space to vend its coffees at a national level.

For promoting in-home coffee consumption, the coffee retail chain proposes to have a ‘dual’ strategy to expand its business both as a packaged retail brand as well as a coffee chain.

“We have decided to sell our coffees at all the leading modern retail formats. There is now going to be a new home brew section within the company as we are offering coffee solutions to cater to homes as part of a dual market strategy,” said Mr Alok Gupta, Director, Café Coffee Day.

There are also plans to sell percolators for which the company would be providing after-sales services. Currently, Café Coffee Day retails its brand at Metro, the cash-and- carry format store.

“We should now be able to clock at least 1,000 stores with our brand. This would have consumers engaging with our brand and the category more effectively,” said Mr Gupta.

However, unlike the brews available at its coffee chains, its retail strategy would have select flavours to cater to the in-home consumption category.

“There would be basically two kinds of coffee that we would make available on retail shelves. One would be the brew coffee and the other quick coffee,” added Mr Gupta.

For becoming a fully integrated company in terms of coffee vending, the company already dabbles in trading coffee, and its retail presence on the shop shelves is being seen as a forward integration of its business.

Besides, it would continue to sell some of its coffees and filters at its existing coffee parlours as well.

With funding from private equity players such as Sequoia Capital and Deutsche Bank, CCD is equipped to spread its retail operations. Currently, there are 1,200 café retail outlets in the country of which CCD outlets comprise 810, making it a market leader in the segment.

Source: The Hindu Business Line