Aroma invests Bt50m to expand production
Play
Non-coffee output also to rise; own-brand machines coming soon
Aroma Group, a leader in the one-stop coffee business, has invested Bt50 million to expand its plant and increase the production capacity for roasted coffee beans by 50 per cent to 4,000 tonnes per year, said managing director Kijja Wongwaree.
The company is also increasing its production lines for non-coffee products such as tea and cocoa-flavoured drink-mix powder, along with new trendy beverages, since the sales of these types of products have been increasing every year. The production lines between coffee and non-coffee products will be kept completely separate.
The second phase of the plant is expected to be complete by November.
“This year’s market overview for fresh coffee, worth approximately Bt6 billion a year, is expected to grow more than 20 per cent, partly because of an increasing number of coffee retailers who are mostly partners of Aroma Group, resulting in increasing sales in the overall market,” he said.
“In addition, our Aroma shops are one-stop coffee service centres, which have increased 100 per cent in sales growth,” he said, adding that more shops would open this year.
Recently, Aroma Group decided to manufacture coffee machines and grinders under its own brand, with initial spending of more than Bt10 million on their design to ensure that all the machines, which will be manufactured by a European company, have premium quality and are compatible to European standards.
A prototype coffee grinder is expected to be ready launch by June or July this year, while semi-commercial and professional coffee machines for fresh-coffee businesses will launch around the third or fourth quarter.
In the meantime, the company will continue to be a distributor of coffee machines under the Faema snd Wega brands from Italy and Expobar from Spain.
Aroma expects an increase in sales of coffee machines by 25 per cent from last year when it held Bt25 million of the overall market value of Bt450 million to Bt500 million.
Kijja added that the company was planning to export coffee machines and grinders under the Aroma Group brand to Italy, Spain, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.
Although mainland China is considered the biggest market, the company will keep it a low priority as it is a very big country and full of scattered towns varying in business cultures and concepts. This would make it difficult for the company to control the standards of quality and service, which could affect its brand’s reputation.
Taking into account the plant expansion, cost of raw materials, and increases in production and distribution capability, the company expects revenue this year to grow by as much as 30-40 per cent over last year’s Bt1.3 billion.
