Café Owners Taking On Major Expansion Thrust

Jamaica Observer:

Local coffee producers plan to put up 18 more coffee shops across the globe over the next three years, using the Starbucks model for the local market.

They are expanding at a time when other sectors are contracting because of rising electricity and commodity prices. It’s an indication that revenues in this gourmet coffee café market are outpacing costs.

The bulk of the new stores are to come from Café Blue, which plans to grow its store count by a factor of five to meet anticipated demand. Although they are expanding the fastest, others are also seeing rising numbers of coffee junkies.

“We plan to put up 15 stores in three years, so long as the shops are available,” said Eilean MacKay, operations manager at Café Blue.

“It’s not based on any great research, except to say that people are buying coffee,” she said of increasing sales.

It seems an unlikely feat for a shop that currently has three outlets; but its new store in Sovereign is bustling with patrons buying lattes, frappes and other Italian coffee mixes (more on that later). The store’s parent company is Coffee Traders Ltd - that’s a big Blue Mountain coffee producer.

“The financing for the expansion will come from stores and our parent company,” said MacKay. By December, they plan to put stores in the tourist districts of Negril and another in Montego Bay.

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