Caffe Nero plans to counts on creating Turkish delight
Posted by meb at February 19th, 2008
Caffe Nero, the coffee bar operator, has started to open stores in Turkey as part of an international expansion strategy targeting the Gulf, China and several European countries.
The company, taken private a year ago in a £235 million management buyout led by Gerry Ford, its chairman, has opened two stores in İstanbul and has another half-dozen sites in the city in the pipeline by April.
It is operating through a joint venture with Işık Asur, a Harvard Business School graduate who previously ran the Starbucks operation in Turkey. Ford said that his target was to have 100 stores there. “Turkey has been very successful for Starbucks,” he said. “Over 60 percent of the population are under 30 and Turkey is undergoing a transition to Western brands.” He said that the locations would be a mix of new malls and main shopping streets. The first opened in October at the İstinye Park mall, which Ford described as “Bond Street meets Knightsbridge”, with “every designer brand you can imagine”. He said that the Turkish coffee bar market was “like the UK ten years ago” and although many people still drank tea or strong Turkish coffee, urban consumers increasingly were choosing espresso-based drinks. Caffe Nero serves both types of coffee in its stores. The company, which has 352 stores in Britain, hopes to sign up a partner in the Gulf by the end of summer. Ford said that he was also “looking around Europe and scouting out China”. He said that like-for-sales in Britain, where it is opening one store a week, were “still positive”, despite the slowdown in consumer spending.
© The Times
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