Operations director Tony Wang said: “When people visit Don’t Yell At Me, we hope that they are not here just for our teas, but here for our message and the positivity. We hope that through our daily teas will inspire our customers so that they can carry this attitude forward no matter what they are facing.”
Beverage company Bobby has launched low-calorie and low-sugar soft drinks in different flavors, added with prebiotics.
The company claims each can contain 32 to 40 calories and that the beverage may aid digestion and boost good gut bacteria with the added prebiotics.
“Our mission is to redefine what soft drink is to everyday Australians by offering a truly exceptional and enjoyable beverage that doesn’t compromise on health or taste,” said Kristian Johannsen, founder and MD at Bobby.
Johannsen added that Bobby supports environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled aluminum cans and cardboard slabs.
“We’re here to make a difference in taste and sustainability. With each sip of Bobby, our customers can indulge guilt-free, knowing they are contributing to a company that genuinely cares about the impact it makes.”
Bobby drinks are sold in Doctor Bobby, Vanilla Cola, and Lemon Lime flavors. Lemon Lime is exclusive to 7-Eleven, while Vanilla Cola and Doctor Bobby are available nationwide at 7-Eleven, independent retailers, and online.
Swire Coca-Cola, a franchisee of the Coca-Cola Company, recorded a revenue of US$236.32 million in the first six months in Vietnam.
Its pre-tax profit was around $33.21 million in the period.
Swire Coca-Cola is a partner of the Coca-Cola Company with a franchise to manufacture, market, and distribute products of the Coca-Cola Company in China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the western U.S.
Swire Coca-Cola entered the Southeast Asia market in July last year by purchasing the manufacturing line of Coca-Cola in Vietnam and Cambodia for over $1 billion.
Leaders of Swire Coca-Cola considered the Vietnam purchase successful as it had made considerable contributions to the company, while its unit in Cambodia is posting a loss.
Coca-Cola entered Vietnam in 1994, producing its beverage in three factories.
Starbucks Vietnam will close its Hanoi outlet after eight years, following the closure of two locations in Vietnam last year. The Starbucks Lan Vien outlet in Hoan Kiem District will operate until June 30, the company said in a Facebook post. Last year, the coffee chain had closed another outlet in Hoan Kiem District and one in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1.
Patricia Marques, CEO of Starbucks Vietnam, said earlier this year that the company was finding it challenging to expand the number of outlets in Vietnam due to difficulties in negotiating rent prices.
The company, however, will continue to expand in Vietnam by focusing on new urban areas where there is a lack of services, she added.
She also said that in central districts, Starbucks has observed that customers tended to order more takeaways, so it was considering opening small takeaway outlets where customers can pick up their drink right away.
Starbucks has 78 outlets nationwide, while its competitor Highlands Coffee’s has 500 and The Coffee House has 156.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced several food and beverage chains to close outlets amid plunging revenue.
The Coffee House closed over 20 outlets last year, while Soya Garden shut down its last one in HCMC. Soya Garden still has eight outlets in Hanoi.
Indonesia-based digitally-native beverage startup, Hey! Kafe, is expanding its local footprint with 300 stores by the end of next year.
According to the company, the brand’s expansion plan will be supported by an asset-light model backed by technology. That means a majority of its outlets will be compact booths that minimize capital expenditure and facilitate Grab & Go delivery service.
Online delivery orders are projected to account for 70 percent of the brand’s sales.
Founded by Edward Djaja, who is also the founder of Seven Retail, Hey! Kafe has opened 60 stores across the country since its launch in June last year.
Focusing on the product development process, Hey! Kafe tests more than 20 product concepts each month, targeting the young customer segment with more than 12,000 cups of beverages sold daily.
“Here in Hey! Kafe, our north star metric is same-store sales growth, which enables the brand to achieve stellar unit economics,” said Djaja. “We are proud to say that our strategy has resulted in a payback period of under 12 months, which is a key milestone for us to scale rapidly in a sustainable manner in the coming years.”
The beverage retailer is supported by several investors, including Trihill Capital, which backed the company in the seed round. Besides its expansion plan, Hey! Kafe also plans to launch an in-house mobile application next year.
Japanese coffee shop Omotesando Koffee is officially opening its first Metro Manila branch in Power Plant Mall, Makati City, tentatively slated for an August 2021 launch.
The famous Zen-style, minimalist coffee shop from Tokyo will be brought into the Philippines by H&F Retail Concepts, the group behind luxury fashion brands Univers, Homme et Femme, Balenciaga, Comme des Garcons, and Fred Perry.
David Ong, owner and head barista of The Curator and EDSA Beverage Design Group, will be helping out.
“Well, the cat’s been out of the bag for a while now. This is just formalizing it further. The opening of the first branch is fast approaching, and we’re helping out a little bit,” Ong wrote on Instagram on Tuesday, June 1, posting a call-out for interested baristas to apply.
According to Ong, two more Omotesando Manila locations will be opening this year, but the hiring process will be for this branch initially.
News that Omotesando Koffee would open in Metro Manila first circulated late 2020, when the original brand’s Instagram page added “Manila” to a list of locations on their Instagram bio, alongside Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, and London.
Omotesando Koffee first opened as a humble pop-up shop in Omotesando Hills, Tokyo in 2011, growing in popularity for 5 years until it closed in December 2015 due to the “aging building” it was located in.
They opened their first Hong Kong branch a year later, and expanded to cities around the world, including a re-opening in Shibuya, Tokyo as Koffee Mameya.
Starbucks today celebrates 20 years of delivering the Starbucks Experience to customers throughout Thailand with the recently opened Central World store– its largest store in Bangkok. Located on the first floor of CentralWorld, the store features a Starbucks Reserve Bar and, for the first time in Asia, Starbucks® DRAFT beverages infused with nitrogen.
Starbucks CentralWorld is Thailand’s largest Reserve Bar store composed of Starbucks traditional coffee bar as well as the Starbucks Reserve Bar, which invites customers to deepen their coffee knowledge. Featuring the Black Eagle espresso machine for unique, espresso-forward beverages and various brewing methods such as the Siphon, Chemex, and Pour Over, customers can taste Starbucks Reserve, small-lot coffees for a premium coffee experience specially-crafted by Starbucks Coffee Master partners (employees) whose passion and knowledge of coffee is highlighted by their black aprons.
Starbucks DRAFT makes its Asia debut in the store on a four-tap system delivering Starbucks Cold Brew and nitrogen-infused Starbucks Cold Brew, tea and milk. This latest beverage innovation draws in customers with its velvety texture cascades from the taps causing a sensory experience to both taste and see. The Starbucks DRAFT counter, found on the first floor of the store, highlights select nitro beverages including Nitro Cold Brew, Nitro Peach Tea, Nitro Green Tea Latte, Nitro Caramel Macchiato and Nitro Flat White.
“From the success of Starbucks Nitro Cold Brew coffee, we continue to search for beverage innovation to elevate the customer experience. Today, we are pleased to launch Starbucks® DRAFT, an innovative cold beverage offering a rich, creamy texture for each beverage.” says Nednapa Srisamai, managing director of Starbucks Coffee (Thailand) Ltd. “This is a new cold beverage experience not to be missed.”
This beverage innovation is the first-of-its-kind in Starbucks across Asia further elevating the cold beverage experience. Starbucks® DRAFTis also available today at one location in the U.S.
As customers enter the space for the first time, their eyes will be drawn to the high, gold ceiling inspired by the natural terraces where coffee is grown, paying homage to the landscapes of coffee-growing terrain. The ceiling begins the coffee journey for customers by inviting them to come in from the outside and move towards the central Starbucks Reserve bar where the aroma of coffee can be enjoyed all around.
The 760 metre store has more than 230 seats and two large rooms is designed to host community events or small gatherings surrounded by locally-relevant art installations throughout the store. Local artists Rukkit Kuanhawate created a feature piece highlighting the various coffee growing regions through regional wildlife including, the Sumatran Tiger, Kenyan Elephant and Guatemalan Quetzal bird. Similarly, Irin (Ann) Ariyatanap and her team handpainted murals using drawings of coffee botanicals and Thai floral motifs alongside imagery of the Starbucks Reserve coffee silos found exclusively at the Reserve Roasteries.
Continuing on the coffee journey, customers are delighted upon entering the store with wooden coffee scoops engraved with messages and colorful motifs describing the various parts of the coffee tree. Similarly, the walls of both meeting rooms serve as tribute to the bean-to-cup story through natural hemp woven art, hand painted ceramics and a floor-to-ceiling wood carving.
Japanese tearoom chain Afternoon Tea Tearoom will open its first branch in Hong Kong this Saturday to offer a Japanese-style casual afternoon tea experience in a tourist hotspot.
The tearoom is located in K11 Musea in Tsim Sha Tsui and offers sweets and a variety of foods such as sandwiches and pasta, plus selected teas and drinks.
The firm is offering a training program in Japan for the Hong Kong staff of its partner Tearoom (HK) Limited to learn the company’s concept, menu and way to serve customers.
“Hong Kong is a culturally diverse society and people here are familiar with afternoon tea culture,” said Ivy Company, Sazaby League company president Ryuhei Tsukada.
“We are grateful to have an opportunity to offer our quality sweets and foods in the city. Our Hong Kong team and Japan team will work together closely to provide the best services to customers, providing them with a rich but casual and relaxing afternoon tea experience.”
“We are happy to see a popular Japanese brand join our dynamic food and beverage market,” said Investment Promotion associate director-general Dr Jimmy Chiang. “Hong Kong people love Japanese food culture, and I am confident Afternoon Tea Tearoom will draw a good following among food lovers who look for nothing but the best.”
Target US is launching its own in-house private-label food-and-beverage range, called Good & Gather.
Described as “grounded in guest research”, the flagship brand is offering a range of food and beverage products focussed on taste, quality ingredients ease and value for money.
Good & Gather will be available in stores and online on Target.com for same-day delivery from September 15.
“Our guests are incredibly busy and want great-tasting food they can feel good about feeding their families,” said Target’s executive VP and president food & beverage Stephanie Lundquist. “We saw this as a huge opportunity for Target to help. So our team got to work on our most ambitious food undertaking yet, reimagining our owned food brands to serve up convenient, affordable options that don’t cut corners on quality or taste. Good & Gather is our way of helping even the most time-strapped families discover the everyday joy of food.”
Good & Gather is Target’s largest own-brand launch yet. By the end of 2020, the company expects it will have more than 2000 food and beverage products under the label, including dairy, produce, ready-made pastas, meats, granola bars and sparkling water. The products are developed by Target’s internal team without artificial flavors and sweeteners, synthetic colors or high fructose corn syrup, and will be backed by a money-back guarantee.
“Over the past few years, Target has been a master of own brand development,” said GlobalData Retail MD Neil Saunders, hailing the launch. “Its labels in everything from fashion to party goods have been well-conceived, nicely executed and, most importantly, have resonated with consumers.
“They have also helped to differentiate Target from other retailers and have played a role in protecting margins as price comparison is more difficult with exclusive labels,” he said.
As Target’s flagship food brand, Good & Gather will include a number of product extensions including kids, organic, seasonal and signature lines. Over time, the brand will phase out Target’s existing Archer Farms and Simply Balanced food brands and reduce the number of product offerings under the Market Pantry brand.
The new own-brand launch builds on the company’s investments in its F&B business to enhance in-store presentation and assortment, increase product reliability and expand fulfillment options, such as same-day delivery.
The new line also plays an important role in Target’s broader effort to reimagine its owned brand portfolio, further differentiating its assortment. Recent owned brand product launches include Everspring, Auden, Colsie and Cloud Island Essentials. By the end of the year, guests will be able to shop more than 25 new owned and exclusive brands.
Tealive parent Loob Holding, is planning an IPO to fund ‘aggressive expansion’. The company is looking to open 1000 Tealive stores in 15 countries by the end of next year.
Along with another 150 new outlets in India by 2024.
China is still its focus market, with 500 more outlets to come after first outlet opened last November.
Tealive has more than 200 outlets in its home market, seven in Vietnam, two in China, and one in Australia. About one third of these are operated by franchisees.
Loob Holding CEO Bryan Loo said the company is building relationships with potential business partners in Japan, Indonesia, Myanmar, Mongolia, and the UAE, while Singapore is also in its expansion plan.
Apart from Tealive, Loob also runs F&B franchises in Malaysia, including Gindaco, Croissant Taiyaki, Define:food, Define:burgers and Ko Ko Kai.
Minor Group has sold its half share in BreadTalk Thailand to the bakery’s Singapore-listed owner.
BreadTalk paid US$5.15 million for the stake, which Minor Group is expected to use to expand its other food and beverage brands in the kingdom, including The Coffee Club.
The BreadTalk Thailand joint venture, called BTM Thailand, was set up in 2014.
Minor Group’s other brands in Southeast Asia include ThaiExpress, Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe, Swensens and the Pizza Restaurant Company.
Vietnamese brewery Sabeco has contributed 46 percent of the revenues of Thai parent ThaiBev in the first quarter of 2018-19. For the quarter ended December 31, 2018, it reported sales of VND13 trillion ($560.58 million) as ThaiBev announced net profits of VND5.54 trillion ($238.83 million) on total revenues of VND54.28 trillion ($2.34 billion), 35 percent and 60 percent up year-on-year.
Beer products became its revenue driver for the first time with sales of VND24.84 trillion ($1.07 billion). Though spirits sales saw strong growth, their share of revenues dropped from 54 percent to 43 percent.
In terms of sales by market, the group reported 52 billion baht ($1.66 billion) in Thailand, down to 71 percent from 96 percent last year. The other significant amount was Vietnam’s VND13 trillion or 23.9 percent.
ThaiBev said while consumption in Southeast Asia is generally slowing, Sabeco has sustained impressive growth.
Two months ago the Thai group became the majority shareholder in the Vietnamese brewer with a 53.59 percent stake following a debt-to-equity swap.
It believes the acquisition of Sabeco would help its expansion in Vietnam, which has a youthful population, extensive distribution network and the strongest beer market growth in the region.
Sabeco, formally known as Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp, reported a 5 percent rise in revenues last year to more than VND36 trillion ($1.56 billion).
It has a 42.8 percent share of the Vietnamese beer market, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation.
According to the Vietnam Beverage Association (VBA), the Vietnamese beer market is worth $3.4 billion.
Securities company FPT Securities predicts the market will grow by 5-6 percent a year.
Heineken Malaysia Bhd, which posted a 4.6% jump in its net profit for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2018 (FY18), remains cautious about its outlook given the challenging environment due to intense competition, implementation of the sales & service tax (SST), and the continued presence of contraband beer in the market. In line with rising global commodity prices, the group also expects an increase in cost of operations including raw materials and packaging.
Finance director Szilard Voros said how the group will perform in FY19 also depend on the market, adding that it will benefit if consumers remain optimistic and if efforts to curb illicit trade are stepped up.
“But we remain cautious because SST was just introduced in September so that also comes with a lag… we also need to see how things settle down after Chinese New Year and see what is the normalised performance and if there’s a growth continuation,” he told reporters at a media and analyst briefing today after announcing the group’s financial results.
Managing director Roland Bala (pix) said the external environment remains challenging. Amidst slowing global growth rates, currency volatility and uncertainty in the commodity markets, he said the group will need to adopt a cautious approach in cost management.
“Moving forward, we will continue to invest in our core brands and leverage on our portfolio. As consumer taste profile changes, we will make bets on brands that we believe will have scale,” he added.
Heineken’s net profit for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2018 grew 6.8% to RM100 million compared with RM93.64 million in the same quarter last year due to higher revenue as well as efficient and effective management of commercial spend and overheads.
Group revenue grew 12.3% to RM662.28 million as compared to RM589.96 million in the same quarter in 2017 mainly due to increase in sales volume driven by the flagship Tiger brand.
For the full year period, net profit grew 4.6% to RM282.2 million from RM270.06 million a year ago, while revenue rose 8.3% to RM2.03 billion from RM1.87 billion.
It has proposed a final dividend of 54 sen per share for the quarter under review, bringing the full-year dividend payout to 94 sen.
PepsiCo India’s bottling partner Varun Beverages Monday said its board has approved plans to acquire franchise rights of the beverages and snacks major in South and West regions. The board has approved the company’s intent to enter into a binding agreement with PepsiCo India Holdings to acquire franchise rights in the two regions for a national bottling, sales and distribution footprint in seven states and five UTs, Varun Beverages Ltd (VBL) said in a regulatory filing.
According to a report, upon completion of these acquisitions, VBL will be a franchise of PepsiCo beverages business across 27 states and seven Union Territories (UTs), it added.
“The proposed acquisitions are in line with the company’s strategy to expand into contiguous territories and will help to acquire greater scale, operational productivity and efficiency leading to higher revenues and profitable growth,” it said.
VBL, however, did not disclose financial details of the proposed acquisitions.
The company further said its board will meet on February 26 to consider raising of capital through Qualified Institutions Placement (QIP).
Last year in January, VBL had entered into a pact with PepsiCo to sell and distribute the latter’s entire Tropicana range of juices along with Gatorade and Quaker Value-Added Dairy in North and East India.
VBL already held manufacturing, sales and distribution rights for Tropicana Slice and Tropicana Frutz in the two regions.
PepsiCo had then stated that North and East regions together accounted for 80 percent of the juice market in India and VBL’s contiguous reach would help it more than double the distribution reach in these states.
Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd has declared its highest dividend payment amounting to RM1 per share for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2018 (FY18) following a record performance for the year. Managing director Lars Lehmann said this is equivalent to a 110.3% payment of the group’s FY18 net profit, in line with its dividend policy to declare at least 75% of the group’s quarterly net profit and a special dividend in the event of surplus cash after considering future cash requirements.
The group declared a fourth quarter (Q4) interim dividend of 16.6 sen per share. It also proposed a final interim dividend of 22.4 per share plus a special dividend of 9.3 sen amounting to 48.3 sen per share.
Together with the interim dividends declared for the first nine months of FY18 amounting to 51.7 sen, the total dividends for FY18 amount to RM1 per share.
Carlsberg’s Q418 net profit rose 34.9% to RM67.45 million from RM50.01 million a year ago thanks to strong sales in the Malaysian operations, higher profits from Carlsberg Singapore Pte Ltd as well as higher profit contribution from Lion Brewery (Ceylon) PLC.
Revenue grew 22.3% to RM525.65 million compared with RM429.94 million in the previous year’s corresponding quarter.
For FY18, the group’s net profit jumped 25.3% to RM277.15 million from RM221.17 million a year ago, while revenue grew 12.1% to RM1.98 billion from RM1.77 billion.
Looking ahead, Carlsberg warned that rising prices for raw and packaging materials will see costs increasing 5%-10% if it is unable to mitigate such effects. Lehmann, however, stressed that the group is improving its efficiency.
“There’s a bit of headwinds for increase in prices of raw materials like malt and packaging materials like cans that are not specific to Malaysia but globally. There’s a bad harvest in Australia for barley and the prices are going up,” he told a media and analyst briefing after announcing its FY18 financial results today.
He added that the group will continue its focus and execution on the third year of SAIL’22 strategy in both Malaysia and Singapore, while areas of growth for FY19 are its premium brands like Connor’s, Somersby, 1664 Blanc and Asahi Super Dry.