With a quirky and refreshing tagline that says ‘A lot can happen over coffee’, Café Coffee Day touched the hearts of the Indian youth, assuring them that all they need is a cup of coffee and a peppy place to talk it all out! And so it happened. CCD became the favourite hangout spot for a lot of Indian youngsters, and yet only a few people actually know that it’s actually a full desi brand!
We all visit CCD every now and then but do you know the history of the cafe that made coffee popular in a nation of tea-lovers?
It was 20 years ago, in 1996, that Café Coffee Day was started by V.G. Siddhartha, in Bangalore. Becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t always his dream. In fact, in 1979, when he was just a college student, his aim was to become a communist leader! Little did he know that he was destined to become the coffee baron of India. Siddhartha was working as an analyst with JM Financial and Investment Consultancy, when he first opened the cafe with assistance from familial wealth and 10,000 acres of coffee farms inherited from his parents!
With an initial investment of ₹ 1.5 crore, V.G. Siddhartha opened the first CCD outlet in one of the busiest and poshest localities of Bangalore, Brigade Road.
The Café Coffee Day group owns huge coffee plantations with an expanse of thousands of acres in the western part of India. Kathlekhan estate, Halasoor estate, Devdarshini estate, Girikhan estate, Kurkunmutty estate and Bhadra estate are a few of these coffee plantations. While the company gets its Dark Forest coffee beans from the Kathlekhan estate, famous for growing single origin coffee beans, the Arabica and Robusta beans are procured from the Kudregundi estate.
The CCD group also takes special care of the tribe that handpicks the coffee beans in the Kathlekhan estate. A school and a hospital is run by the estate for the people and free electricity is provided to all the homes.
CCD has its outlets everywhere! From the state of Jammu and Kashmir to the streets of Tamil Nadu or in the corners of Meghalaya, you can sip a perfectly brewed cup of coffee at CCD almost anywhere, anytime. It was the success of Café Coffee Day that encouraged international coffee brands like Lavazza, to enter the Indian market!
Today with more than 1500 cafes spread across 209 cities across India, Café Coffee Day is India’s largest coffee chain. The cafe also has an international presence in Austria, the Czech Republic and Malaysia.
And that’s how an Indian brand etched its name in our hearts with a perfect cuppa coffee!
