Gloria Jean’s to open its first coffee shop in Bulgaria in 2008

The company will open a first coffee shop in Sofia in 2008, and open a further two shops by the end of 2007 in Hungary, where it already operates a coffee shop in Budapest.

Gloria Jean’s Coffee will also expand in Romania. The company plans to become a national brand by 2009. Gourmet Products Servicii, controlled by Ener Holding shareholders, has the master franchise of the American brand in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, and is currently negotiating the opening of two more franchised coffee shops in Iasi and Brasov. “We do not plan to open a slew of unprofitable coffee shops. That is why we are interested in shopping centers, but are also looking for good custom storefront locations in Bucharest,” Gourmet Products Servicii General Manager, Radu Marinescu, told Business Standard. Once the current franchise contracts end, the company will open storefront coffee shops in Iasi and Brasov, sometime at the beginning of 2008. The average investment for a Gloria Jean’s Coffee shop is €100,000.

 The franchise fee is some €25,000, and the master franchiser charges a monthly 6 percent from net sales and a marketing fee of 2 percent. The company has received 40-50 franchise requests in the past year and a half.

The first Gloria Jean’s Coffee shop on the Romanian market opened in January 2005 in the Plaza Romania shopping center. It was the first to introduce the “self service” and “take away” concepts to the Romanian market.

“Take away” sales are now close to 10 percent of total sales, compared to the first year, when these represented a mere 1-2 percent. The three active shops in Romania sell a daily 10,000 coffees, while 5-10 percent of sales are coffee beans.

Gourmet Products Servicii’s turnover in 2006 amounted to €1 million, and a 40-50 percent increase is expected this year. Starbucks and Costa Coffee, with two shops each, are the company’s main competitors on the Romanian market. Internationally, Gloria Jean’s Coffee operates some 750 shops.