Today, according to reports from insiders, Lu Longhai has joined the company on November 11 as the General Manager of Retail Business for Costa China, directly reporting to Tom Edgar, the President of Costa Asia Pacific.

The brand's operations in China are mainly divided into retail and ready-to-drink, with the former focusing on coffee shop operations. This means that Costa China, with nearly 400 coffee shops, now has an “influential” “operator.” In this position, Lu Longhai will be committed to “driving the profitable growth and upward development of the retail business, inspiring more and more Chinese consumers to love good coffee.”

Data shows that Lu Longhai has over 20 years of management experience in the retail and food service industry, having held important management positions at several well-known multinational companies, including General Mills, Yum!, Nike, Swarovski, and Pandora.

In 2022, Costa China indicated to Foodinc that it expects the number of coffee stores to reach over 1,000 by 2025. According to the data from Narrow Door Restaurant Eye, as of today, Costa has a total of 389 stores in China; since 2020, the number of its stores has been hovering around 400. After 18 years of entering the Chinese market, this coffee chain giant headquartered in London, UK, is still far from its "thousand-store" goal in China.

It is evident that it will not be an easy task for Costa to "catch up." Expanding the number of stores is undoubtedly an important path to achieve growth. However, before deciding on large-scale expansion, perhaps Costa still needs to refine its differentiated competitive strategy in the Chinese market across multiple dimensions, including pricing, product innovation, brand marketing, store styles, and digital strategies.

How to make China an important core market for Costa's retail business and gain enough attention and support will also test the new leader's capabilities.

0

打赏

表情 点击这里取消回复。