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The Hindu

India's cafe retailing business quite bullish, outlook positive: Tata Starbucks CEO Dash

Changing climatic conditions, the volatility they bring around and lack of consistency are some of the biggest challenges that coffee producing countries, including India, are facing today, said Sushant Dash, CEO, Tata Starbucks, a 50:50 joint venture between Seattle-headquartered Starbucks and Tata Consumer Products Limited. On the other hand, the coffee consuming countries were increasingly becoming more demanding, they wanted transparency, traceability and sustainability, elements also aimed at ensuring right economic value for the commodity, he said. Commenting on growing coffee consumption in India, Mr. Dash said although India has been a tea drinking nation, now 20% to 25% of the population were drinking coffee. ''So, the headroom is huge for India and going forward coffee has a huge potential both near term and long term,'' he added. According to him, the cafe retailing market has been quite bullish in India and its growth outlook is very positive. An evolving coffee culture, with the coexistence of organised cafe chains, standalone entrepreneurial coffee ventures and tiny coffee outlets in villages, together were creating a spiralling impact and a coffee culture was getting created all across the country, he observed. 'We are clearly seeing a spiralling impact and a fast-growing coffee culture across the country, including in small towns. We, Starbucks, are looking for category expansion, a huge growth of the cafe market,'' Mr. Dash further said, indicating that taking market share was't the chain's primary focus. Buoyed by a rapidly growing cafe culture in metros and small towns across the country in the last two to three years, Starbusks has accelerated its store openings in India ``We see a lot of youngests taking to coffee, although India is a tea country. It is not just a metro feature, but the coffee culture has been spreading across the country. We have 487 cafes in 80 cities. We are very bullish on the market and we will continue to expand wherever we think the need exists,'' Mr. Dash further said. Tat Starbucks had earlier indicated that it has a target of opening 1,000 Starbucks outlets in India by FY28.