Coffee Day enters Joint Venture with Japanese retailer

Indian cafe chain Coffee Day has partnered with Japanese sales-floor support-service business Impact HD to grow its retail network in India.

The joint venture plans to rapidly build market share in the region’s neighborhood retailing sector, launching a minimum of 450 Coffee Day Essentials branded stores in quick succession.

Coffee Day Group holds a 51 percent controlling share in the joint venture.

“With about three times the population of Japan in the same standard of living as the Japanese, the multi-retail market environment in which food and daily necessities are purchased on a daily basis remains unexplored,” read a statement released by Impact HD. “In India, kirana stores account for 98 percent of the total, and the remaining 2 percent are hypermarkets and supermarkets that incorporate foreign capital and know-how.”

The joint venture will convert lagging Cafe Coffee Day cafes into Coffee Day Essentials neighborhood convenience stores.

The Impact HD JV was among the last major decisions made by Coffee Day Group founder and chairman VG Siddhartha before he took his own life in July.