The Malaysian Insider :: Food
The Malaysian Insider :: Food |
| China the new battleground for coffee brands Posted: 21 Oct 2012 02:11 AM PDT  Coffee consumption is expected to rise sharply in the coming years, given that the Chinese associate it with a trendy Western lifestyle. — AFP pic Major coffee brand owners such as Nestle, Starbucks and Mondelez International are looking to tap China's fast-growing number of coffee drinking consumers. Nestle's Nespresso upped the ante this year by launching special Nespresso machines designed in partnership with luxury retailer Shanghai Tang to commemorate the year of the dragon. American coffee giant Starbucks is also planning to introduce its Verismo single-serve machine in China next year. The coffee chain added that it intends to have 1,500 stores in China by 2015, measured against approximately 650 at present. "We have an extremely ambitious development plan in China," said Belinda Wong, president of Starbucks China told BloombergBusinessweek. "China has been designated as our second home market outside of the United States. We believe China will become our largest market outside of the US by 2014." Some of Starbucks's coffee chain rivals in China include Costa Coffee, South Korean-owned bakery chains Paris Baguette and Tous Les Jours, as well as Hong Kong's Pacific Coffee. Another player in the coffee business, Mondelez International -- which controls the Tassimo brand, is considering entering the single-serve coffee market in China. "In cities like Shanghai and Beijing, a coffee shop culture is developing and there's a fertile ground for single-serve," said Hubert Weber, president of its coffee division. According to China Daily Thursday, China's coffee consumption in 2010 was estimated to be 25,000 tons, as opposed to more than one million tons for tea. This figure is expected to rise sharply in the coming years, given that the Chinese associate it with a trendy Western lifestyle. "In China, coffee is more like a symbol of Western affluence, friendship and a bridge in connecting the people," Raymond Tong, CEO of Pacific Coffee, the second-largest coffee chain in Hong Kong after Starbucks, told the daily. London-based research company Euromonitor International, which estimated total turnover of China's market for coffee shops to be 3.5 billion yuan ($558 million) last year, expects coffee sales to triple to 10 billion yuan by 2016. In addition, the Chinese are expected to become more sophisticated when it comes to drinking coffee, switching from instant coffee to freshly brewed coffee. — AFP-Relaxnews |
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