Blue Tokai, an Indian specialty coffee brand, aims to increase its footprint to 130 outlets by the end of the financial year. The company is dedicated to expanding its presence in the domestic market where it currently operates.
“We are not looking to expand to new markets and our focus is going deeper into the markets where we are already present. We should be able to open up five stores within a market in a small amount of time for it to make operational sense. At this point, we see more opportunity in the larger cities rather than focussing on the smaller cities,” said Matt Chitharanjan, Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters.
Gurgaon-headquartered Blue Tokai, which commenced its operations in 2013, is currently present in over 80 outlets in major metro cities in India. Recently, the company received funding from actor Deepika Padukone through Ka Enterprises, marking a significant contribution to its Series B funding round.
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In an effort to bring specialty coffee to consumers on the move, the company has launched a range of brewing products, including easy pours and cold brew cans. Additionally, there are plans to introduce a variety of new ready-to-brew products.
“The company plans to open nearly 60 more outlets over the next five years after crossing 130 outlets and the focus will be more on the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) products. The brand will have reached scale and mass where we see an opportunity to move more into offline retail with our products,” he said.
With operations already established in Japan, Blue Tokai is now considering the prospect of extending its international footprint into the Middle East market.
“Japan is one of the largest coffee-drinking markets in the world. Indian coffee is unknown in the place. However, the response in Japan is far beyond our expectations. We had just a pop-up store in a mall in Tokyo serving only coffee. The customer feedback we got was that people did not expect the flavour complexity of Indian coffee. We will expand in Japan. The next market we would look at will be the Middle East but not in the immediate future,” added Matt Chitharanjan.