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Duncans plans to do a Barista with tea

Ishita Ayan Dutt in Kolkata

Duncans Industries, the flagship company of the Gouri Prasad Goenka group, is examining the option of setting up tea parlours.

Typically leading coffee outlets in Kolkata enjoy about 350-400 customers everyday, on an average, garnering Rs 250,000 a month (approximately).

"We therefore need to work out whether setting us such parlours would be a viable revenue model for us," said company officials. Fieldwork agencies have been appointed to do the research.

Tea parlours would be an obvious extension of Duncans' retailing plan. The company has charted out a growth strategy in the field of premium loose tea retailing with the establishment of Duncans Tea House outlets in different parts of Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and Haldia with the total number of outlets now being 40.

The company plans to set up 100 outlets in West Bengal by the end of the year and a national launch is also on the anvil.

Duncans has started retailing Marybong Mystique, which is a premium hand-picked Darkeeling tea from the high elevation Duncans estate of Marybong. It is available in 100gm and 250 gm pack sizes with prices ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 750.

Company officials said, the next initiative would be to brand a CTC garden once the DTH becomes national, as CTC is the most preferred tea across the country.

The company is studying the national strategy for DTH at present. It has zeroed in on Gujarat and a state in central India, to start with. DTH sales have been growing at the rate of 1,000 per cent.

DTH has also entered into an exclusive arrangement with Pantaloons wherein DTH will retail Marybong Mystique in exotic chestlets from Pantaloons counters.

"The agreement presently is for Pantaloons outlets in Kolkata, but we are open to increasing presence in other parts of the country," said the company officials.

As part of a joint promotion campaign, every customer who walks in Pantaloons during specified periods will be entitled to a free cup of Marybong Mystique at Cafe Bollywood.

In addition to this, events such as "meet the blender" would be organised periodically at Pantaloons wherein professional tea blenders/tea experts from Duncans would be available for answering the queries of Darjeeling tea connoisseurs.

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