Barnie's will set up 300 stores in India

NEW DELHI: US-based coffee store chain Barnie's on Thursday entered the Indian market with plans to invest close to Rs 75 crore to open 300 stores across the country in the next five years.

"Barnie's opened its first store in Noida and we are looking at setting up 25 stores in the country in the first year itself  with an investment of about Rs 25 crore," Barnie's India Managing Director Gaurav Marya said.

The company has plans to increase the number of stores to 300 in the next five years and has earmarked an estimated Rs 75 crore for its expansion plans, he said adding the company is looking to clock a turnover of Rs 50 crore in the initial three years of operations.

Cities where the stores would come up are Bangalore, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Jalandhar and Lucknow.  While Barnie's would initially set up company owned stores, Marya said they would also look at the franchisee model in the coming years.

"It is important for us to put our operations in place and set up the entire supply chain first. We would look at all options but we are not in a hurry to adopt the franchisee model," he added.

With an eye on the domestic coffee retailing market, Marya said the company is working out the details in this regard.

"Packed coffee retailing would be a small part of our business initially but it is definitely one of the significant business arms for us," Marya said.

However, the company would launch its bottled cold coffee in supermarkets and stores across the country by Decemeber this year, he added.