Tata Coffee Ltd (TCL), owned 51 per cent by Tata Tea, plans to launch 100 coffee outlets in the country over the next five years. The Bangalore-headquartered company currently has one such outlet – under the brand name Tata Mr Bean Junction – at Kochi in Kerala.
“We have plans to start another five in the current financial year,” Managing Director M Hamid Ashraff said.
“We are yet to finalise the locations. We are thinking of Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore.”
“We will own these shops. Thereafter, we will grow the franchisee route. In the next five years, we plan to have around 100 outlets,” he said.
Ashraff further informed that the Rs 60-crore, 3,600 metric-tonnes-per-annum coffee plant proposed to be set up in Uganda has been delayed as local bodies have been wrangling among themselves for the company’s investment. The company expects to sort out the issue in 2-3 months. Tata Coffee Ltd had entered into an agreement with the Ugandan government in November 2006 to set up a plant for producing instant coffee in that country.
Tata Coffee is the largest coffee plantation company in Asia with estates in Coorg, Hassan and Chickmagalur districts of Karnataka. The company has around 8,000 acres under crop, producing over 9,000 tonnes of coffee annually. TCL also has a state-of-the-art curing works at Kudige near Kushalnagar in Karnataka, with a curing capacity of 22,000 tonnes per annum.
