HOMEGROWN specialty coffee chain Bo’s Coffee is set to open at least 20 new branches in the country for 2019. The company also plans to expand further its network overseas.

Bo’s Coffee founder and president Steve Benitez said its first branch in Qatar will become the model for their future expansions outside the country.

“Our five-year plan starting off 2018 is we would become a global Filipino coffee company, so we will start going out of the country, which is 2022 to 2023. But this year, we opened one outside of the Philippines, which is in Qatar,” he said.

The customer profile of the Qatar branch is 70 percent locals and 30 percent foreigners.

“That was signed before we had our five-year plan, but we still went on with it. After Qatar, we are not going to open any outside of the Philippines store. We want to make sure that Qatar becomes successful, and we’re also focused on our growth here locally,” he said.

Benitez said that they are in talks with other partners to build another branch overseas, but they have yet to reach a concrete agreement.

“We’re already talking to other interested partners for two other countries, but we’re not going to act on that until we’re 100 percent sure that we have everything in place,” he said.

For the first quarter of 2019, Bo’s Coffee already opened six branches and is expected to open 20 to 24 branches nationwide.

Benitez said to sustain the “homegrown brew” concept, Bo’s Coffee sources its coffee beans from the highland farmers in Sagada and Benguet in the Mt. Province, Mt. Kitanglad in Bukidnon, Mt. Apo in Davao and Mt. Matutum in Tupi, South Cotabato.

He curated a local menu and highlighted the Philippine Coffee Origin by supporting local farmers and allowing local entrepreneurs to use his coffee shops to advertise their local artisan products.

Local demand

According to Benitez, the Philippines has yet to satisfy the local market demand, the reason industry players are importing some of their coffee bean requirement.

Demand for coffee in the country stands at 100 metric tons (MT) per year; however, the coffee farming community can supply only 30 MT per year.

Data from the Department of Agriculture showed that the Philippines imports from 75,000 MT to 100,000 MT of dried coffee beans from Vietnam and Indonesia annually at a cost of P7 billion to 10 billion.

Under the Philippine Coffee Roadmap, the country is expected to raise coffee production to 214,626 MT by 2022.JOB with KOC