The market has been ripe with rumours over the past years, regarding a possible arrival of Starbucks in Romania. Among the "usual suspects" was also businessman Nicolae Badea, who, together with other businesspersons, controls the Alltrom group.
Alltrom companies hold the franchises for the KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants, the Howard Johnson hotel chain, clothing company Benetton, electronics company JVC and IT firm Computerland. #leadend#
"We do have such plans, but it is too early to be talking about that," Nicolae Badea said.
Why too early? According to Simon Borwell, sales and marketing director of Panfoods Romania (importer of the Amigo brand in Romania), there is no way Starbucks could be a success in Romania, especially in the present Bucharest.
"Bucharest lacks a downtown area where people can walk a lot. People usually drive and, except for one or two places, there is no affluence of customers," Borwell maintained.
According to Borwell, Panfoods Romania did consider expanding in this direction, but concluded it was not the case.
On the other hand, Nir Livni, a director with coffee producer Elite Romania, feels that the café business has indeed soared in the past few years.
"We get lots of requests every month, plenty of locations are opening. This business is booming, and anyone saying otherwise is wrong," he added.
Due to an aggressive marketing policy, Starbucks managed to turn coffeehouses into locations just as popular as pubs, even in countries with no coffee drinking tradition, such as England.
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