In what represents an important step in its international expansion strategy, Juan Valdez® Café has opened its first café in South East Asia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The store is the first of six in the company’s plans to open in this country.
"We are very optimistic about our presence in this new region," said Méndez during the opening of the first Juan Valdez coffee shop in the region. “We have prepared intensely for this new phase, even bringing in Colombian experts to train local staff. We also have very committed partners that will help ensure our success.”
This new store is of the successful Origins flagship format(recently launched last December in Bogotá, the Colombian capital city), which aims at offering a different experience of Colombian regional origins and specialty coffees ways of brewing. It is the first flagship Origins coffee shop out of the country. For the opening of the coffee shop, three Colombian experts at brewing and hospitality from the Juan Valdez® headqurters team and the domestic training team travelled to Malaysia, all this to bring the Colombian premium coffee culture!
The portfolio of products to be offered by the store includes roasted and packed coffee from different Colombian regions, hot and cold drinks brewed from Colombian premium coffee, a great variety of premium pastries developed by a recognized chef and products for coffee brewing and consumption.
Malaysia’s dynamic economy has caught the attention of the investor community, and Juan Valdez decided it could not miss out on this opportunity. This country's steady growth is about 4% in the last years, the government’s stated goal to become a high-income country by 2020, plus growth in the coffee category of 6% per year, were powerful reasons that prompted Procafecol to disembark in this country.
Malaysia is an increasingly demanding coffee market, with young consumers featuring a very educated palate and great appreciation of premium-type products, such as those marketed by Juan Valdez® Café. Connoisseurs believe that a coffee brand such as Juan Valdez® Café has huge room for growth throughout the country.
With the opening of the first store in Malaysia, Juan Valdez® Café already has 267 coffee shops worldwide, of which 187 are in Colombia and 80 distributed in 12 other countries: Aruba, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Panama, South Korea, Spain and the USA. There will be 330 stores operating worldwide by year’s end with openings planned in Latin American as well as others regions and countries.
Juan Valdez® Café stores and packaged products are designed to benefit Colombian coffee growers. Procafecol, the company that operates the brand, was designed as an inclusive business model where the farmers themselves actually benefit from the sale of every cup of Colombian coffee. The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) is Procafecol’s largest shareholder, and in addition, more than 18,000 individual coffee growers have invested in Procafecol´s shares. All in all, there are more than 500,000 coffee growing families represented by the FNC, and the vast majority own small coffee plantations no bigger than 1.6 hectares on average.
In addition, the business pays royalties to the National Coffee Fund (FONC) to provide support and programs to Colombian coffee growers. In the last year 2013, royalties for direct operation of the brand reached more than US$ 4 million. No other company in this sector allocates a comparable proportion of its income to projects that focus on sustainability of coffee cultivation.
About the Juan Valdez® brand
Juan Valdez® is the only internationally recognized brand that belongs to coffee producers. Inspired in the icon that has represented Café de Colombia for over 50 years, in 2002 the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation – a non-profit organization that represents more than 500,000 small Colombian coffee producers – created the Juan Valdez® brand for coffee shops. Years later, after the popularity and acceptance of the brand in coffee shops and products was consolidated, the distribution of Juan Valdez® products in other national and international distribution channels began. Besides being a synonym of high quality for Colombian premium coffee consumers, Juan Valdez´s coffees transfer a greater value to coffee producers. Further information on www.juanvaldezcafe.com and www.cafedecolombia.com
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