For the last several months, I watched reports from the India correspondent of my hometown paper, the Los Angeles Times. The doleful Mr. Mark Magnier, it seemed to me, would wake up in Delhi every morning with a thirst for bad, depressing, ugly or unpleasant news. I wondered if an Indian girlfriend had dumped him or something like that.
But I was wrong. Wrong. Mark just wrote a positive (well at non-negative) story about India. I will quote directly so I don’t take away any nuance. Its a quote from Reuters, but nonetheless Mark, thank you for seeing something nice in India. Have a cup of Barista on me. Maybe one of Cafe Coffee Day too. Eventually I will treat you to a Starbucks in India (after the chain’s 95th attemp to enter India)
Italy’s leading coffee roaster Lavazza plans to raise sales in India by 25 percent a year in the next few years thanks to a new coffee plant there as it aims to expand on growing Asian markets, a senior executive said. Lavazza, which bought India’s second-biggest coffee shop chain Barista Coffee Company and coffee vending company Fresh & Honest Cafe in 2007, expects India to become its No. 2 market after Italy in the future and a hub for expansion in Asia. “It will be a long and difficult process, but it is an immense market in the future,” Attilio Capuano, Lavazza’s director for Asia and Pacific region, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Monday.
Lavazza’s 30 million euro ($40.86 million) annual sales in India represent just about 3 percent of total group sales at present but they would rise by 25 percent a year in the next few years as more Indian consumers pick up western habits, including coffee drinking, Capuano said. “We are targeting up to 100 million of potential coffee drinkers. It is an incredible growth potential,” he said.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
