Abhinav Kumar an MBA from symbiosis with +19 years extensive retail operations experience having worked in various leadership and customer centric roles always contemplated on innovations in making speciality coffee easily available. Owing to keen interest in curating a concept in hand crafted coffee lead him & Dipraj Das (Co-Founder Craft coffee) to plan a millennial centric scalable format on handcrafted coffee & food pairing model and hence the birth of an artisanal coffee brand Craft Coffee. At Craft coffee our pursuit is to continuously innovate towards making a cup of high-quality coffee while also engaging customers in the story of the coffee and hence the concept of the hub and spoke model where we open 1 or 2 Experience Centres in a city basis potential and self service speciality coffee kiosks and boutique cafe’s around the same.
● How does Craft Coffee pushes the envelope in the world of speciality coffee and coffee innovation?
We continuously thrive to bring out the different flavor nodes suiting to the palette of milennials and hence the launch of Coffucha or Coffee Kombucha, Cascara refresher or cranberry lime coffee tonic etc to name a few. We work extensively on coffee & food pairing thereby curating desserts & savouries as a rightful combination with the type of coffee being served to our guests. Our baristas are basically trained as tour guides to build a conversation with the guests and share the journey of coffee. The concept is build on the platform of promoting take aways / hyper local delivery & home delivery model thereby making speciality coffee easily & affordably available.
● How did the idea of an experiential centre come up?
Artisanal coffee is all about discovering and appreciating newer flavours, aromas, textures & roast profiles and hence the finer nuances of coffee. While we have always been so concerned about the quality of our coffee, it always seemed strange & intriguing to Abhinav as to why we are not as exacting about our choice of food. Hence areas like coffee & food pairing have tremendous scope & hence the work on handcrafted artisanal cheese, chocolates & bottled brews started at the Experience Centre with the subsequently launch of the in-house bakery & bottling unit. Having hand-crafted the brews in-house, Abhinav and Dipraj believe in tailoring select foods that pair ideally with their exquisite range of speciality coffee emanating various flavours suiting to the palette of the young milennials and Gen-Z
● When you say ‘experience centre’, what experience does one take back home?
The experience centre is aimed at giving our coffee connoisseurs a live experience of bean to cup journey and showcasing all the efforts which goes into bringing the right cup of joe – live roasting, grinding, manual brew making process, artisanal chocolates and cheese pairing, live bakery are a few things our guest cherish while they enjoy their coffee and food pairing. The idea is to take back home a memorable experience valuing the endearing efforts put up by everyone in the supply chain to make a good cup of coffee.
● How many experience centres have opened so far?
1 has already opened in Kolkata spread across 6000 sq feet & 2 more are slated to open by sept 2022. By march 2023 the brand aims to set up 4 more in Patna, Siliguri, Bengaluru & Hyderabad alongwith 10-12 boutique cafe’s.
● Please elaborate the concept “go for grounds” and what makes Craft Coffee a sustainable brand?
With the rising coffee culture we realized the quantum of coffee ground decomposing and releasing methane and thereby contributing to global warming. All it needed was to take steps on putting these used coffee ground to usage through recycling. At Craft we religiously follow the ethos of maintaining 360 degree integrity and coffee and hence the campaign #goforgrounds started. The campaign is built on the pillars of coffee grounds recycling program or creating unique ways to reuse coffee. As coffee roasters working on coffee sustainability is another dream craft coffee chases. Hence the work on planters based of coffee grounds or crockery made of coffee husks or blending exclusive recipes with cascara. All these aim to support fair wages & also become environmentally responsible. We aim to work on the triple bottom line: people, planet and fair profit.
● How has Craft Coffee contributed to the hospitality industry?
The brand believes in building a ecosystem and community of like minded people from the hospitality fraternity and help support mutually symbiotic growth and hence collaborations with home grown brands in hospitality industry. Apart from generating skill based employment we also ensure that our team undergoes professional training and certifications thereby creating a talent pool for our business and industry at large
● Has there been any collaborations with the food and industry heads so far?
The brand aims to develop a community of like minded home grown brands and hence has done successful tie-ups and collaborations in the areas of artisanal cheese and chocolates, coffee ground based organic skincare range & curating bottled brews
● What are your future marketing and expansion plans for Craft Coffee?
The future of the brand lies in integrating modern technology as a service facilitator thereby ensuring scalability and increased penetration through app based ordering & own delivery platform / loyalty program / self service kiosks and mobile order takers. Hence a lot of planned investment will go into product and technology upgradation. The brand aims to cover the entire geographical base of Kolkata through its hub & spoke model in the next 6 months with opening of 10-12 speciality coffee kiosks and then gradually expand to other cities and go national in 2022-23
● Do you plan on restricting it to speciality coffee or more ideas to expand the brand?
Craft by definition means something skillful that’s done with hands. The brand aims to explore and innovate anything which helps build an ecosystem in and around speciality coffee and hence cheese, chocolates, coffee based skin care, bottled fusion coffee brews etc are a few areas we are already working upon. As Abhinav and Dipraj firmly believe- coffee making can be an art but the science of it is undeniable. It is in this marriage between technology and artisanship where we coffee lovers thrive and intend to work passionately.
