Chai can easily be called the national beverage: Amuleek Singh Bijral
Chai can easily be called the national beverage: Amuleek Singh Bijral

Start-ups have maintained quite a disruption in the Indian market for some time now. In the wake of them doing so, Zarafshan Shiraz, in an exclusive with Amuleek Singh Bijral, Co-founder and CEO, Chai Point, finds out what makes it one of the most loved brands in the country and what is helping them scale faster in the Indian market.

What according to you is bolstering the migration towards chai cafes and tea bars from the home-brewed teas? What triggered the sudden mushrooming of tea cafes?
It is a known fact that we are a tea drinking nation but despite being one of the largest producers and consumers of chai, the last mile delivery of it is broken in our country. After finishing my MBA from Harvard, I was working in a tech company in India as their Country Head. It was during this stint that I noticed my co-workers and white-collar professionals had to go to nearby tea stall which was not satisfactory due to lack of a better option. I saw this as an untapped business opportunity and the idea of Chai Point was born in 2010.

It is a fact that chai cafes like ours are able to provide an authentic and a consistent cup of tea made from fresh ingredients and the experience built around the beverage is highly personalised for the consumers. These factors have contributed to making Chai Point one of the most loved brands in India.

What opportunities do you sight in this chai business?
Chai can easily be called the national beverage. No matter what the season or the reason, chai is a companion everyone loves in the country. Our business model is omnichannel. We serve Chai through our stores, extending the entire brand experience to the customers, delivering it at your doorstep for the orders that come through our app or through food tech partners. We also sell our own brand of tea which is sourced from some of the best tea estates and packed at the place itself to maintain its freshness. We have also launched boxC.in, an IoT enabled automatic chai/coffee dispenser for the corporate sector.

We believe that a B2C brand needs to have an omnichannel strategy to serve its customers. Chai Point currently runs stores in 8 cities – Bangalore, Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and is soon slated to enter Chennai. We have more than 2,000 installation of boxC.in and our home delivery segment is one of the fastest growing vertical in the business.

What have been the key drivers in scaling up of this niche industry?
Tea is the second most consumed beverage globally, after water. In India, 30 cups of chai are consumed for one cup of coffee. The tea drinking market is pegged at Rs 33,000 crore growing at 15% per year. Clearly, there was always a market available in India but the last mile delivery to the customers was broken. At Chai Point, our mantra is ‘tea is a ritual in India’ and our entire business model is woven around owning this ritual and serving tea to customers through various touch points.

Which are your highest selling products and what is their USP?
Our most sold out product is Ginger Chai. Our customers have told us that the  Ginger Chai which we serve them here at Chai Point reminds them of chai from home – refreshing with a correct balance of spices, the tea and the aroma.

What new do you bring to the table that sets you apart from your competitors?
Our garden to glass program, where we source tea from the best estates and brew a fresh cup everytime for a customer, use of real spices and no artificial tastes, our ability to make tea/coffee in a machine using fresh milk and ingredients and the overall experience we extend to the consumers whether they come to our store or order chai at home make us stand apart. The fact that our customers are at the heart of our entire business operation makes us one of the most loved brand in the country.

Our early investment in technology to make our operations more agile has also helped us scale up faster, making Chai Point the largest chai café brand in India with 100 stores. We plan to open 50 new stores this year.

 
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This Speciality Tea Business Has an Ambitious Growth Plan
This Speciality Tea Business Has an Ambitious Growth Plan
 

As a passionate 'tea man', Managing Director of Teamonk Global, Ashok Mittal has spent nearly four decades in the fascinating world of teas. Currently, he is heading a company born out of his passion for teas – Teamonk Global.

Teamonk Global is a speciality tea portal, driven by a single-minded vision of offering the finest teas to the consumers across the world. It offers teas from the choicest tea gardens both through e-commerce platforms and selected retail outlets.

Managing Director of Teamonk Global, Ashok Mittal, started his career with Lipton as a management trainee in the tea division, having spent 15 years in perfecting the art of tea tasting, buying, blending, quality control with good understanding of the tea manufacturing process and heading tea-buying units in Siliguri, Guwahati, Kolkata and South India. After 22 years of association with Lipton, Brooke Bond India, Ashok Mittal seconded Unilever Indonesia to head their domestic tea operations. Since 2012, Ashok Mittal is associated with Mohani Tea, the largest tea company in North India, as a consultant VP and has helped the Group in sustainable growth. 

In an interview with Restaurant India, Managing Director of Teamonk Global, Ashok Mittal speaks about the growth of the tea industry in India.

Story Behind TeaMonk Global

Teamonk is a speciality tea venture, focused on high end, premium green, oolong, white and black teas, specially curated by the experts, catering to the tea connoisseurs and tea lovers. These are pure and natural teas with natural ingredients to enhance the taste (green teas) and we do not use any flavour, essence or oil in our products. Our supply chain and customer service is world class and we deliver freshest teas to our discerning consumers.

Also Read: What’s Your Favourite Cup Of Tea

Contribution to the HoReCa Segment

We are in the process of introducing our brand in the institutions, cafes, resorts and big hotels and expect to develop it as a significant channel in near future.

Popular Misconceptions about Brewing, Drinking or Cooking with Tea

Tea was always meant to be brewed to enjoy its natural taste and flavour. Unfortunately, in South-Asian countries, people started using tea more as a dessert or filler in between meals for energy which led to excessive use of milk and sugar in the tea with boiling to thicken the beverage. The tea character has been diluted significantly over the decades. In order to enjoy tea with its natural character, it is important that it is always brewed and very little milk and sugar are added to ensure the tea character is not diluted. 

Tea Industry in India and Its Growth

Pic credit | Teamonk

The tea industry is gradually evolving towards healthier and non-conventional teas as the younger generation is far more health conscious and realizes the harmful effects of excessive milk and sugar consumption in the beverage. Green and other speciality teas are growing significantly and will continue to grow with the increase in health awareness.

Click to Read: How This Tea Cafe Is Brewing The Success Story

Health and Wellness an Integral Part of Food and Beverage Industry

Health and wellness is an integral part of the F&B (food and beverage) industry. People are making a conscious choice of going for brown eggs, fibre bread, non-carbonated beverages, organic foods, green vegetables, etc.

Therefore, it is quite natural that any food or drink, perceived to be healthier will find favour with the younger generation. It is a natural healthy drink compared to any other beverage and, therefore, we do see tea, particularly green ones becoming far more popular in future.

Foods That Pair Best with a Cup of Tea

Any food which is lighter, not oily or deep-fried will be a good pair with tea. However, any food consumption should always be with green tea rather than milk and sugar or black tea as that will cause acidity and also affects digestion, especially, due to the boiling method used at most Indian households. 

The Scope of Indian Tea brands Abroad

India offers the maximum variety of the beverage compared to any other tea-growing country - Darjeeling, Assam, Nilgiris, Himachal and North Bengal region (Dooars) with each region offering different taste experience, character, seasonal variation, etc. There is a huge opportunity for Indian tea brands to be established in overseas markets but this requires sustained support from the Indian Government and the industry. 

Expansion Plans with Teamonk Global

Teamonk has an ambitious growth plan to reach over 150-crore gross revenue in the next four years, sticking to our core values of pure and natural, healthy and exotic tasting teas to delight tea lovers.

 

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We are planning to open 300 Cafes in India- Rafih FiLLi
We are planning to open 300 Cafes in India- Rafih FiLLi
 

How FiLLi Café has change the way tea is served across the UAE?

In beverage industry tea business has not given as much importance as coffee. Cafes were only meant for coffee and the concept of conversing over a cup of tea didn’t exist in the UAE. This was the biggest challenge in the journey of FiLLi. I created a homely ambience at FiLLi that made visitors feel like home. The signature FiLLiZafran Tea was appreciated by people as they could chat for hours while immersing themselves in the joy of a warm, soothing cup of tea.  Thus, this way the journey of FiLLi was began, where visitors could ‘Tea n Talk’ and gradually made FiLLi as their second home in the UAE.

What new product range you are offering for your customers? Which is the fastest growing product?

We have introduced breakfast menu, milkshakes and loose tea. Milkshakes are the fastest growing product and we have 21 flavours of milkshakes.

Which section of market you love to focus?

Dubai has a serious food culture and that is what we are tapping into. By 2020, Dubai is expecting 20 million tourists with a rise of 10.6 over 2012. Even the local market is also very strong and willing to try new concepts. With the increasing appetite for out-of-home dining and growing discretionary wealth in the Middle East, there is plenty of room for brands like us to expand their business.

Our main target is low and middle class, working, students and tourist people. And our average ticket size is AED 20 (USD 6).

What is your marketing approach to survive in this market?

Since, we completed our franchise plan; we have a serious approach towards marketing. Recently, we have done smart and effective branding for our existing stores. As marketing strategy, we are also focusing on our brand positioning, menu re-engineering and employee training. We have a very active social media pages as part of our digital marketing.

What is your expansion plan in terms of numbers of outlet?

100 outlets and still running; by 2020, we have ambitiously planned to have 100 principle stores in the UAE. And by 2017, we intend to have 30 stores in UAE along with 70 franchises around the world. In India we have plans to open 300 outlets in 10 years.

Are you also planning to take franchisee route?

Yes, we are expanding our business globally using franchise program. The franchise option will be available in all the other countries except UAE. In fact, the plan has been set in motion with the first franchises for five outlets already being signed off in Qatar. The brand has also set up a dedicated team for expansion in the UK and India.

Tell us about your journey as a young Indian entrepreneur who started with a small roadside café FiLLi.

I am very fun loving person and enjoy being with friends. The history of the name FiLLi traces back to my school days, where my friends gave me the title FiLLi. But little did anyone know that this name was given for the sake of fun would one day lead to the establishment of FiLLi.

The signature FiLLiZafran Tea is a result of my own determination to introduce a specialty tea that people would love. After being a hit amongst UAE’s tea lovers, my aims is to take this taste global by reaching out to every tea lover and make them fall in love with tea all over again.

Meet this Young Entrepreneur and Speaker at Franchise India 2015 on 18th and 19th of October at Pragati Maidan.

 

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4 things that consumer would love about Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge
4 things that consumer would love about Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge
 

Wagh Bakri Tea Group is a Premium Tea Company with a long-lasting relationship of love and trust with its loyal consumers since 1892. With Leaf from the best tea gardens selected and personally tasted by group directors, today, Wagh Bakri Tea is the 3rd largest packaged tea company in India with a turnover of over Rs.1000 Cr. and over 45 million Kgs of tea distribution.

The group is a leading stride in tea exports and retail consumer all over the world. With huge number of Wagh Bakri tea lovers around the world, it has emerged as a truly global brand.  The company enjoys undisputed market presence in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi & Hyderabad and has recently forayed in to Chhattisgarh and Goa.

Taking a leap

And, as the newer trends awake the industry, the group has taken a step closer by launching its Tea Lounges few years back. Today, Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge is spread across Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmadabad.  The group has recently opened a Tea Lounge at Delhi’s most happening destination, Connaught Place which is spreads across 1500 sq. ft.

“Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge serves world of teas under one roof. We are getting tremendous response in Delhi since we have opened and we are planning to open at least 20 tea lounges across Delhi in the near future,” shared Parag Desai, Executive Director of Wagh Bakri Tea Group.

Here are some of the takeaways from the recently opened Tea Lounge:

1) Tea enthusiasts can have a sip of a variety of over 45 types of handpicked teas from across the globe, including include varieties of Darjeeling and Assam teas, organic teas,flavored teas, Nilgiri tea, Oolong tea, tea mocktails, and even ice-cream tea.

2) A perfect place to unwind and indulge in tea time conversations and more.

3) A big attraction for consumers is the array of mouth watering Indian snacks with all-time favourites like Bran panini, bakedvadapav, Veg Focaccia, chocolate brownie, muffin and much more.

4) Besides the teas available at the newly launched Lounge, the complete range of Wagh Bakri packaged tea will also be available for purchase.

So, whenever you are out on a tea break, have a look at this newly opened cafe, which might serve you the way you wanted your tea to be. 

 

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