Have you ever felt the instant lift at the waft of coffee when you enter a cafe? Or have you felt your stress manageable enough as you sip your coffee? Do you feel better equipped to manage work-life harmony after you’ve had your coffee? There could be no greater feeling than waking up to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Boosting this feeling further is Kings Coffee, inspired by the coffee culture in Vietnam.
It is said that the French brought the coffee crop to Vietnam in the 19th century and popularised it with the people and the King. With the progress of time, coffee became the King’s favourite business. As a result, coffee in Vietnam is known as the King’s coffee.
During a business trip, Devendra Kumar and Abhishek Khurana realised that the Vietnamese coffee blends are more delicious than the options available in the ready-to-drink coffee segment in India. This acted as the prompter to launch Kings Coffee in India.
The Products Being Offered
The brand has different varieties of ready-to-drink and ground coffee under the banner. The flavours include the original, mocha, latte, hazelnut, and vanilla flavours, and the premium ready-to-drink coffee comes in 280 ml bottles. There is a separate segment for coffee enthusiasts, their medium to dark roast pour-over coffee for brewing in 100-gram packs.
Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs), retail stores, cinemas, and gyms have the 320 ml ready-to-drink coffee cans as their highest selling product. They’re lactose-free, recyclable, and available across hotels.
What Does The Coffee Market Look Like?
The vision is to build Kings Coffee up to a Rs 100 Cr homegrown brand with the export and other avenues opening up in the Indian market after the pandemic. There is a significant boom in the Cafe space for coffee, which also, directly and indirectly, benefit the brand.
Target Groups
Kings Coffee shares that its target groups are Millennials and Gen Z consumers. There is a rise in coffee consumption and an increasing dependency on coffee in India. The target audience sees coffee as a key source for officegoers to get through the day. In the evolving target segment, the brand is keen to position itself as the go-to brand for people after great-tasting coffee.
Coffee Challenges
Kings Coffee is at its premium price, being an imported commodity. This makes it challenging to increase the MRP, although the inflation and the prices of raw materials have dramatically increased by 40%. This is because the ongoing pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian War have disturbed the supply chain. As an imported product, this isn’t good for business.
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The company is bootstrapped and is unwilling to burn cash on expansive marketing campaigns to scale up the business as they desire. However, the business has seen a growth of 50% every year, and they intend to keep up the pace.
Plan For The Future
Going forward, the most pressing challenge would be to increase the number of coffee drinkers in India. As a nation besotted with tea and its magic, it will be challenging to convert a nation of tea lovers into coffee lovers. As per research, the coffee consumption per capita stands at 90 grams, while for tea, it is a whopping 780 grams.
Merely looking at the numbers might make scalability a major issue. The good news is that the Indian coffee market is growing at a 25-30% rate after the pandemic. In terms of scalability, the most like option might be exporting.
With Vietnam as their base for manufacturing, they are looking to cater to the entire Southeast Asian market. Developing the brand’s coffee factory in India opens up the African and Middle East markets. With these bases, the brand plans to scale up the business to at least 10-15 more countries this Fiscal Year.
Distribution Channel
Today, over 90% of Kings Coffee sales are offline rather than online. They are a traditional brick-and-mortar business with over 70 distributors nationwide. So far, they are available at all the big retailers in India. Kings coffee is present in over 15,000 shops, including airports, QSRs, general trade, major modern retail, cinemas, and airlines.
People looking for the brand online are on e-retail platforms such as Blinkit, Big Basket, Amazon, and Flipkart.
Growth Strategy
Currently, the brand is extensively using social media to market Kings Coffee. They do partnerships with social media influencers, print media, and outdoor advertising, including billboards and standees in front of stores. Additionally, they also run ads in cinemas.
