Huge opportunity beckons India in Coffee retailing

Bangalore, Feb 25 (UNI) Besides Tea and Milk, Coffee is competing with other 'Ready To Drink' beverages to claim its space in Indians taste buds.

With only 22 per cent of the coffee drinkers in the country, the Indian Coffee Board and other retailers, including Corporates, are trying to find avenues to attract the vast segment of non-coffee and occasional coffee drinkers to boost domestic consumption.

Increasing the domestic consumption, than striving to boost its exports, had been the mantra of both state-owned Coffee Board and the mega corporate entities, involved in growing and selling coffee, during the three-day India International Coffee Festival (IICF) 2007 which concluded here today.

Speaking on the concluding session titled ''Opportunities for Coffee Retailing in India'', Coffee Board Deputy Director (Market Research) S Radhakrishnan said tea drinkers constituted 66 per cent of the population compared to 22 per cent who had been branded as habitual coffee drinkers.

''Despite its commanding position in Southern states, for people in Kerala, the most densely populated state in the country, tea is the first drink in the morning. In Andhra Pradesh Coffee is a evening drink. There is a great scope for increasing coffee consumption amongst occasional drinkers and non-drinkers,'' he added.

Listing out the barriers for low intake of coffee in other states, he said people thought coffee as expensive, not healthy or required more efforts to prepare.

Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Co CEO Naresh Malhotra said retailing opportunities for cafes in India was big. According to an estimate the domestic market was currently at Rs 2,000 crore.

Barista Coffee Company CEO Partha Dattagupta said that ''youth with higher disposable income, new economy, changing lifestyles has created new opportunities for coffee retail in India in a big way.

UNI