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The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has signed a loan agreement for up to USD 75 million with ECOM Agroindustrial Corp Ltd and its group company ECOM Agroindustrial Asia Pte Ltd to support coffee supply chains across Asia, JICA said on Wednesday. The loan, co-financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), marks JICA's first exclusive working capital loan and aims to strengthen cooperation with global agricultural trading companies to support Asia's agricultural and food supply chains. The financing will support stable procurement of coffee from over 60,000 smallholder farmers in India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam, JICA said in a statement. The project includes purchase funds and consulting services such as coffee certification support, climate change adaptation pilot projects and farming support for female farmers. India's coffee industry accounted for 3 per cent of global production in 2022, ranking eighth worldwide, and provides direct employment to over
Allana Consumer Products Ltd, the country's fourth-largest coffee exporter, expects exports to slow to 22,000-25,000 tonnes in the current fiscal year due to volatile global markets, a senior company official said on Tuesday. The company exported 26,300 tonnes of coffee in the 2024-25 financial year. "We have done around 11,000 metric tonnes of green coffee exports until the end of August. We hope to do anything between 11,000 and 15,000 for the rest of the year," C P Bopanna, associate director of Allana's coffee division, told PTI. Allana has scaled back export volumes over the past two years as market volatility has made it difficult to plan growth, Bopanna said. "Past 1-1.5 years, we have seen the kind of volatility that we have not seen in the past 40 years. It is very difficult to project or even make a strategy saying I am going to grow at 5 or 10 per cent per annum," he said. The company is prioritising profit margins over revenue growth as it navigates uncertain markets,
Starbucks workers in three states took legal action against the coffee giant Wednesday, saying it violated the law when it changed its dress code but refused to reimburse employees who had to buy new clothes. The employees, who are backed by the union organising Starbucks' workers, filed class-action lawsuits in state court in Illinois and Colorado. Workers also filed complaints with California's Labor and Workforce Development Agency. If the agency decides not to seek penalties against Starbucks, the workers intend to file a class-action lawsuit in California, according to the complaints. Starbucks didn't comment directly on the lawsuits Wednesday, but the company said it simplified its dress code to deliver a more consistent experience to customers and give its employees clearer guidance. As part of this change, and to ensure out partners were prepared, partners received two shirts at no cost, the company said Wednesday. Starbucks refers to its employees as partners. Starbucks' n
British coffee chain brand Costa Coffee's India revenue from operations surged 30.76 per cent to Rs 198.5 crore in FY25, and its profit rose 28.4 per cent to Rs 149.7 crore. The growth was driven by store expansion, as the number of outlets increased from 179 to 220 in FY25, according to the latest annual report of Devynai International Ltd (DIL). Its revenue from operations was Rs 151.8 crore, and profit stood at 116.6 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2024. Costa Coffee's gross margin declined marginally to 75.4 per cent from 76.8 per cent in FY24, primarily because of inflation in coffee beans and other input materials. "The brand contribution margin came down from 17 per cent to 16.1 per cent, with average daily sales (ADS) per store declining from Rs 33,000 to Rs 27,000, translating into a reduction of same store aales growth (SSSG) from 8.7 per cent to 4.1 per cent during this period," said DIL. Costa Coffee is operated in India through its franchise partner DIL,
The Brady House branch of the Punjab National Bank (PNB) in Mumbai, infamous for a multi-million dollar scam involving diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, has been turned into a cosy cafe. Patrons sit on comfy chairs and plush sofas, sipping steaming cups of organic coffee with light music playing in the background on the premises, a stark contrast to the chaos that erupted after the duo defrauded the bank of more than Rs 13,000 crore. The premises in the Brady House building in the Fort area of south Mumbai were once at the centre of one of the biggest financial scams to rock the country. Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi allegedly siphoned off over Rs 13,000 crore of public money from the PNB using LoUs and foreign letters of credit (FLCs) by bribing officials of the bank's Brady House branch between March 2011 and November 2017. With Choksi's arrest in Belgium two weeks ago, the Brady House is again in the spotlight, but the operations of this branch were shif