Tata Consumer Products proposes to double the number of beverage vending machines to about 4,000 (from over 2,000 machines now) by the end of FY25 by tapping the hotels, restaurants, catering (HORECA) segment apart from corporate houses, Nidhi Verma, head, vending business, Tata Consumer, told FE. The business was incubated in 2023, with under 700 machines. This number has tripled in a year, Verma says.
“The aspiration is to double the number of machines by the end of this financial year. In terms of revenue, the business is growing two times quarter-on-quarter. We should continue to see this growth trajectory into the future,” she says.
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Competitors to Tata Consumer in vending machines include Cafe Coffee Day with 50,000 machines and Nestle India with around 5,000 machines. Unlike the traditional vending machines, which depend on pre-mixes to dispense beverages, players such as Tata Consumer, Cafe Coffee Day and Nestle India use an innovative bean-to-cup format for delivery.
Coffee beans are actually placed in the machine, which is ground and mixed with milk before dispensing, Verma explains. Apart from coffee, Tata Consumer is also dispensing tea (chai), soups, lemon and organic teas, milk drinks etc. There are no plans to dispense RTDs (ready-to-drink) beverages, Verma says, through these machines.
“We are studying the vending opportunity in India. What we see here is that there is a strong traction in the corporate sector for our machines. At the same time, high-end hotels, restaurants, cafes etc are an emerging channel,” she adds.
The overall market for bean-to-cup machines in terms of volume is around 60,000 in India, with the number growing by around 10-15%, say experts.
Tata Consumer is targeting the top six metros including Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune for its vending business. While machines have been placed in markets such as Kerala, Orissa and Rajasthan, Verma says the focus will remain on the top six metros for now.
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She also adds that apart from having newer machines in its portfolio, Tata Consumer has also put in place an end-to-end servicing strategy that takes care of machine breakdowns in the event there are technical snags.
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