Impact looks to perk up sales with The Coffee Academics
Impact Exhibition Management Co is expanding into coffee as part of plans to triple its food and beverage sales to 3 billion baht over the next three years.
According to Paul Kanjanapas, the company’s managing director, Impact recently bought the Thai market rights to The Coffee Academics, a Hong Kongbased speciality coffee chain.
The first Coffee Academics cafe is in a space of 170 square metres and had a soft opening on Tuesday at Velaa @ Sindhorn Village, Bangkok’s newest luxury mixed-use development, on Lang Suan Road.
“Being a franchisee for this brand will enable me to cut time by up to seven years when compared with doing our own creation,” Mr Paul said.
The company was awarded the rights to operate The Coffee Academics in Thailand for 10 years, with an option to extend the rights for an additional 10 years.
Impact plans to spend 200 million baht to open three coffee shops in Thailand in five years. The second branch will open at an unnamed shopping complex in Bangkok, and the third will be at Impact Muang Thong Thani.
“The marketing and product knowledge we acquire from The Coffee Academics will also be applied to our food and beverage business,” he said.
The partnership underscores the company’s ambition to expand the F&B business in Thailand, tapping new market segments and bringing customer experiences to the next level, said Mr Paul.
Thailand’s coffee market is estimated at 10 billion baht, with speciality coffee making up 10% of the total.
The food and beverage business under Impact is forecast to represent 10% of the company’s total revenue, or about 1 billion baht in this fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2020. The figure is expected to reach 3 billion baht in three years.
Impact operates 30 restaurants in Thailand, including Hong Kong Fisherman and seven Tsubohachi Japanese restaurants.
According to the company’s business plan, Impact aims to increase the number of restaurants to 60 branches over the next three years.
The Coffee Academics was founded in Hong Kong in 2012 with the mission of making speciality coffee accessible and exciting, and to raise the appreciation of premium coffee globally through a pedagogical approach.
The chain operates 20 stores, with 12 in Hong Kong, four in Singapore, three in China and one in Thailand. By next year, the company hopes to have more than 30 stores in Asia.
Under its five-year plan, The Coffee Academics intends to have 100 coffee shops globally, with about 50 of them in China under a franchise system and the rest in locations including Macau, the Philippines, South Korea and Japan.
Jennifer W.F. Liu, the founder of The Coffee Academics, said the company is expanding in Thailand because of its coffee-drinking culture.
Thailand is also the third largest producer of coffee in Asia, trailing Vietnam and Indonesia.
Some 99% of the coffee made in Thailand is of the robusta variety produced
in the South. The remaining 1% is arabica coffee grown in the North on a much smaller scale.
Coffee production trends have begun to shift away from robusta, so there is huge potential for The Coffee Academics in Thailand, Ms Liu said.