Coffee culture dates back to 14th Century in Turkey. The coffee culture was most dominant in 17th and 18th Century and became more popular amongst socialites, intellectuals, artist, and writers because it is said that coffee stimulates discussion. Now a days coffee cafes are a part of city’s lifestyle. The café culture is now encroaching towards Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
One of the popular chains of café is Frespresso-A brand which is not just about coffee, its more than that! Music, books, guitar, wifi etc. We spoke with Mr. Dhiren Surijani, Director,Frespresso Hospitality Pvt Ltd to know more about Frespresso.
Q1. Throw some light on your brand, ‘Frespresso’.
As we say it, “ its not just about coffees “. Frespresso is an experience all together to each and everyone attached around it. For a franchisee its an experience of hassle free venture into a new domain of business where all the operational experience comes from our end and again it happens at the lowest possible cost if done via the franchisee model. For a customer at frespresso its an experience of having the best food and beverages along with a list of other things which include free wifi, board games, pleasant music, Books, Guitar and more…., and again at a price which is again lowest in the segment. So basically it’s a win win situation for both the franchisee owner and a frespresso customer.
Q3. There are various ways for brand expansion. What made you choose the franchise route?
Franchisee route gives opportunities for us to connect with various people who are looking to venture into new businesses but they lack knowledge of starting it and do not have the right resources to do so. At Frespresso our main aim is to help the budding entrepreneur and job doing people who aspire to become entrepreneurs but do not want to leave their jobs. Interestingly the first store started by us was a franchisee store and all our stores in the last five years are franchisee stores.
Q3. How do you see the growth of Frespresso from the day you started it? In which locations Frespresso mark its presence?
We were very sure about our franchisee model to succeed from day one. Our franchisee model is a franchisee friendly model wherein the franchisee can have a proper control over the store even if he is not present at the store full time. We provide operational support when the store is running. We have a presence of 26 stores across 11 states they are Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Bihar, Kerela, Maharashtra and Chhatisgarh.
Q4. Not everyone has experience in Food and Beverages industry, in that case what kind of backend and front end support you would provide to your franchisees?
We are fully aware of the fact that our franchisee do not have any experience of running F & B outlets, that is why they go by the franchising route. Instead of exploiting this fact we have a approach of developing our franchisees. We believe we would grow only when our franchisee will grow. All the support operationally is provided by Team Frespresso to our franchisees. We have a software based reporting system through which we tap on the sales operation of the store. Our Managers do an audit time to time to implement new products and check for any issues at the outlet level. Everything which comes under operations is assisted.
Q5. What is the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of Frespresso? How is your brand different from your competitors?
We believe competition is always healthy. Instead of looking at what our competitors are upto we always look forward to doing what is important for our outlets and we plan our strategies keeping this in mind. We have an international beverage menu with an Indianised touch over the food menu, which gives our customers a perfect combination of both the worlds. We finish our food products at the outlet itself, giving a fresh product to the customers. Largely all the cafes outsource their food menu but we have it made in house which gives the customer fresh product and to the franchisee lower wastage, as out sourced food has a very small shelf life.
Q6. Where do you see your brand in the next 5 years?
We are looking at 250 outlets in the coming five years. This would be a mix of company owned and franchisee outlets.
Q8. Please share the franchise facts of Frespresso with us.
Standard Café (dine in )
- Total Investment: 10 to 15 lacs
- Franchise fees: 3 lacs plus taxes
- Area Required: 400 sqft onwards
- Royalty: 6 %
- Margin: 40 to 50 %
- Payback period: 18 to 30 months
Nano Café ( kiosk )
- Total Investment: 5 lacs approx
- Franchise fees: 2 lacs plus taxes
- Area Required: 80 to 100 sqft
- Royalty: 5 %
- Margin: 40 to 50 %
- Payback period: 12 to 18 months