Chennai :
The good ol’ Indian coffee is steadily making its way into the world of pizzas and burgers in India with quick service restaurant (QSR) chains like Pizza Hut and McDonald’s making it an integral part of their offerings. QSR chains, which hitherto focused only on their flagship offerings like pizzas or BigMacs, are diversifying into the cafe concept to lure those customers, who flock to cafes since the concept of coffee and snacks between meals is growing in India.
Over the last two quarters, the QSR segment has been posting low same-store sales growth and companies are working their best to increase volume sales by offering value meals and diversifying store formats to increase footfalls. And with a $300 million Indian coffee market, growing at 17% annually, cafes are a clear option for QSRs.
Yum! Brands’ Pizza Hut has started a Hut.Cafe in a store-in-store format where a Pizza Hut restaurant houses a cafe that serves coffee, tea, smoothies and coolers; and McDonald’s recently brought in its McCafe format to India to sell its range of coffees, pastries, savouries and chilled beverages.
Pizza Hut has launched its Hut.Cafe outlet each in Chennai & Kolkata and this marks Pizza Hut’s foray into a new category of coffees. “During tough times one of the things we have done is to try and reach out to a whole new segment of customers. The Hut.Cafe will help in getting customers who just go out for coffee and snacks between meals,” said Sanjiv Razdan, general manager, Pizza Hut India.
The company now has its own range of products and has worked on specialty Indian coffees, but is also open to working with different brands to bring in their signature products to Hut.Cafe tables, Razdan said. The company has two such outlets and expects to open 10 more by the end of this year.
“McCafe has helped us bring in more customers by building a different day part and increasing footfalls within the McDonald’s restaurants,” Ranjit Paliath, vice president – business operations, McDonald’s India (west & south), said. McDonald’s now has three McCafes in India but plans to open 75-150 more in the next 3-5 years.
Coffee is so dear to the Indian consumer that dessert-chains too are looking at putting ice creams parlors and coffee shops together. American ice-cream brand Mini Melts, which recently made its foray into India, is planning to set up Mini-Melt Cafes where consumers can step in for coffee or tea, have snacks and finish off the mini-meal with ice creams.
“We are working on the design and layout of the cafe and will be launching them in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad in the next three months,” said Syed Salim, chairman, HoneyBee Amusements, which has brought the US-based brand to the Indian market. The company will offer a range of Mini Melts-based dishes like ‘floats’, which will have the Mini Melts ice cream on beverages like Coca-Cola, and also serve regular coffees, is looking at typing up with large cafe chains for the coffee, Salim said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Business> India Business / by Sushma U N , TNN / March 17th, 2014
