Businessman Glenn Anthony Soco, president and founder of Coffee Dream smiles for the CDN camera in his Gorordo branch. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)
A Cebuano-owned coffee shop chain is investing P15 million for five more outlets and for the expansion of the shop’s commissary next year.
Glenn Soco, Coffee Dream founder, said yesterday that the Coffee Dream expansion includes two more stand alone shops in Mandaue City and in Cebu City and three kiosk-type outlets.
“One of the kiosks will be in Cebu and the other two outside of Cebu,” Soco said.
He said these additional branches will increase their coffee requirements by 20 percent which means an additional demand for locally grown coffee beans.
“We have always used locally-produced coffee beans which I think has improved over time with improved methodologies now adopted by the producers,” he said.
At present, there are 38 Coffee Dream shops all over the country, 12 are located in Cebu and out of the 38, seven are franchised branches.
“Because of these addition, we also felt the need to expand our commissary to add more capacity. We want to be producing all our cakes and pastries in our own commissary,” he said.
Soco expects the influx of foreign gourmet coffee shops in the country starting next year with the Asean economic integration reaching a milestone.
This has prompted Coffee Dream and other local brands to get ready.
He said the expansion in the market will drive an increase in demand for coffee beans which he said could be a good opportunity for the local coffee growers.
“While 70 percent of the population are coffee drinkers, only 20 percent are captured by the gourmet coffee shops while the remaining drink consumer brands of coffee at home. The industry has been growing by at least 20 percent every year,” he said.
This only shows that there’s still a huge market for the gourmet coffee shops to tap.
Local coffee growers also supply only 60 percent of the country’s demand leaving 40 percent to be sourced from abroad, which he said is an opportunity lost for the local growers.
Soco said he is more confident with the local coffee beans saying the quality has improved a lot.
“I can say that our local coffee is now more competitive in terms of quality. There are already improvements in farming and production methodologies and systems put in place by sectors like farmers, coffee organizations and government agencies,” Soco said.
For their part, Soco said they are eyeing the Asturias and Tuburan coffee farms to supply them the additional coffee beans requirement.
“Asturias have 300 hectares of coffee farm and Tuburan also has another 300 hectares. We are interested to get the supply from them once they start harvesting. Gestation usually takes three years,” he said.