Big catching up for new players: Barista CEO Agarwal on growing competition

Unfazed by growing competition from new players as well as international chains, Cafe Barista is now looking beyond metro cities to expand its presence and drive growth, according to CEO Rajat Agarwal.

From coffee giants Tim Hortons, Tata Starbucks, and the recently opened Pret A Manger to local coffee-related startups like Blue Tokai, Sleepy Owl and Rage Coffee, everyone seems to be betting big on the growing coffee culture of traditional tea drinking. his mom.

However, the Barista CEO says there is a “significant level of catching-up” to be made by new players as the nation’s second-largest integrated coffee shop with a presence in more than 100 cities is growing at a rapid pace.

The local coffee chain brand, which last month opened its 350th store in India in Udaipur (Rajasthan), is looking to reach 500 stores in the next two years.

“Now that we’re already in the 350th position, we’ve either surpassed or far exceeded our store count. We’ve already outpaced some of the newer brands that just came out. There’s quite a level of catching up that needs to be done. We’re also growing at a certain fast pace with about 60 -70 outlets annually,” Agrawal told PTI in an exclusive interview.

Started in the year 2000, which for many was among the first brands to offer Indians the true Italian coffee experience, Barista is now looking “beyond the metro” where it has been operating successfully for the past two decades.

In fact, the brand is already seeing a lot of “new growth” happen to it in non-central areas in the last two or three years.

“The way the infrastructure is developed in the country and the way people travel, now even non-metro people are very aware of what they are consuming and a branded product is always an aspirational value so again there is a certain validation volume that you can drive.” Even being in a non-metro city around 10 years ago was something of a stranger to you,” Agrawal explained.

He also spilled the beans on the huge gap between average coffee consumption in India and Western countries, and said that India’s coffee culture, which only started to pick up in the “past 6-7 years,” has “enormous potential” for every player to grow.

Agrawal noted that the average Indian drinks barely 100g of coffee per year compared to 12kg per year for someone living in Western countries.

“You see the catching-up that India needs to do in order to be closer to some of the dynamics of the international market, and this is where we see the huge potential for all of us to grow and develop the industry in the near future,” he added.