La Kaffa International Co Ltd (六角國際事業), which operates seven food and beverage brands in more than 20 nations, yesterday said it plans to introduce two new restaurant chains in Taiwan this year.
The company’s best-known franchise brands include Chatime (日出茶太) bubble tea stores, Duan Chun Zhen Beef Noodles (段純貞牛肉麵) and Japanese pork loin restaurant chain Wagokoro Tonkatsu Anzu (銀座杏子日式豬排).
Through collaboration with China’s Gangtan Mingshan Restaurant Co (甘棠明善餐飲集團), La Kaffa is to launch a new brand featuring roasted fish, Tan Yu (探魚), in the second quarter of this year.
“We are also planning to introduce Osaka Ohsho (大阪王將) to Taiwanese customers,” spokesman Adam Lu (盧廷當) said by telephone.
Osaka Ohsho is a Japanese cuisine brand with more than 300 outlets around the world.
La Kaffa aims to open at least two Tan Yu restaurants and three Osaka Ohsho outlets in the nation this year, Lu said.
The company also plans to open six Duan Chun Zhen stores and two Wagokoro Tonkatsu Anzu outlets, Lu said.
The quick expansion follows La Kaffa’s new business strategy to increase revenue generated by its restaurants and diversify its product portfolio.
The company was established in 2004 with its first takeout cafe and started its restaurant business in 2014.
Revenue generated by restaurants makes up about 30 percent of the company’s total revenue, while revenue from tea stores contributes about 70 percent, company data showed.
“We hope to increase revenue contribution from restaurants to 50 percent this year,” Lu told the Taipei Times.
The company is also considering introducing Duan Chun Zhen to foreign customers, he said, without providing a schedule.
La Kaffa is also seeking opportunities to cooperate with more international partners to continue expanding its Chatime stores overseas, he said.
Southeast Asia is seen as the company’s next focus, due to better market acceptance for Taiwanese style drinks, Lu said, citing Indonesia as the largest foreign customer.
La Kaffa also operates Chatime stores in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.
The company posted cumulative revenue of NT$2.09 billion (US$66.6 million) last year, representing a 26.81 percent increase from the previous year.
The growth can be attributed to continuous outlet expansion, La Kaffa said.
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
READY TO BUY: Shortly after Nvidia announced the approval, Chinese firms scrambled to order the H20 GPUs, which the company must send to the US government for approval Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) late on Monday said the technology giant has won approval from US President Donald Trump’s administration to sell its advanced H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) to China. The news came in a company blog post late on Monday and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run China Global Television Network in remarks shown on X. “The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the post said. “Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us
RSS