8/12/2019 11Jul14 TOI HUL Eyes Opportunity Over a Cup of Coffee Tcm114 269435

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HUL eyes opportunityover a cup of coffee

a m r a t a S i n g h IT

u m b a i Hindus tan Uni lever(11UL) ha s investe d beh ind aclutch of businesses that arenot typically FMCG. It beganvending tea and coffee eightyears ago and recently pilotedthe Bru World Cafes in Mum-bai. Why is a company, whichse ll s packaged consum er prod-ucts, pushing service-drivenmodels vastly differ ent fromits core oper ations?

When a consumer makesBrooke Bond tea in the morn-ing, she uses a spoon of HUL'spackaged brand, yielding thecom pany ab out 50 paise pe rday. 1IUL wondered why notserve the consumer an en t i recup of tea and introducedvending machines . Thisfe tched the company Rs 3 percup inste ad of 50 paise fromsell ing packaged tea. The con-sume r goods behemoth wasjust beginning to tap the moreprof i tab le and contem poraryconsumpt ion oppor tuni t ies .

The exploding network ofurban cafes serv ingl iquid cof-feean d teaa tR s 50andabo ve tomost ly younger consum ersma de 11UL rese arch this seg-ment as well. Now, Bru WorldCafes plans to compete withCafe Coffee Day India 's larges t

F H O T S T E A M I N G B U S I N E S S

and pioneering cafe chainwith nearly 1,200 ou tlets.

The single thread playingout her e is the accelerating out-of-home (OOiI) consumptionthat is driving fresh ideas inbusiness. Our interest with re-spect to 0011 is on leveragingour brands and moving up thevalue chain. More consumersare spending time out of home-at work, waiting at airport,railway stations or bus stops,hanging out in m alls and multi-plexes. This crea tes a very larg eand u nique experience not justfor consumption, but also forthe brand where you have thechance to engage with the con-sumer, said Anancl Khu rana,business head, OOH ModernFoods, HUL.

The on-premises vending

oppor tun i ty for hot beveragesis estimated at Rs 1,500 croretoday. l lUL's vending bus inesshas grown 30% annual ly in thepast f ive yea rs. We hav e 40,000mach ines in market serv ing 2bil l ion cup s a year, said Khu-rana . This br ings HUL in to aclose contest with Nestle, theother major player in vending.But action in vending is revv-ing up with C afe Coffee Dayand Fres h and Hones t expand-ing presence and pitching forBPO-office con tracts whichare growing in numb er.

Antonio l lel io Waszyk,CMD, Nestle India, had said ayear ago that OOH was amongNestle 's f ive grow th dr ivers.

11UL has already openedsix cafes in Mumbai on pilotbas is and the p lans to increasethe netwo rk to 10 this year. I thas been four months s ince welaunched the f i r s t cafe and con-sumer response has been en-couraging . OOH consum pt ionis an imp or tan t ca tegory dr iv-er for coff eeas a category, saidArun Sr in ivas , genera l man-ager beverag es, HUL.

There are very few exam-ples of product com panie semerging with successful ser-vice businesses, said Harish Bi-joor. a brand expert and a keenobserve r of the cafe culture.

Times Of India - Mumbai Thursday, 14 Jul 2011 Page# :17 Size : 202.24 sq.cm.(44.94 col cm)