Bogota, Aug. 10 - Starbucks Corp. has started talks with a Colombian company and plans to open the first outlets of the popular coffee shops in the major coffee producing country are well underway, local press reported Friday.
Local entrepreneur Samuel Azout, until recently the president of Colombia's leading super market chain Carulla Vivero, has already been awarded a franchise agreement, the business newspaper Portafolio reported earlier this week.
A spokesman for the Starbucks couldn't confirm the report but told Dow Jones Newswires that the Seattle-based company is "excited about the opportunities that Colombia presents". Starbucks in the past has expressed interest in expanding into Colombia.
Several other local press reports in Colombia, however, all stated that the deal was underway and speculated about how the competition from Starbucks would affect the local Juan Valdez chain of coffee shops, which currently has 71 outlets in Colombia.
"The opening of the outlets in the country will be done via the franchise model and the person in charge of developing the business will be Barranquilla businessman Samuel Azout," El Tiempo reported.
Azout had already conducted a series of market research before entering the business agreement with Starbucks, the paper added.
Since Starbucks opened its first coffee shop in Latin America in Mexico City in 2002, the U.S. coffee giant has gradually expanded its presence in Latin America to Chile, Peru, Brazil and the Caribbean.
Last month, Mexican fast food operator Alsea (ALSEA.MX) said it had signed a letter of intent with Starbucks to develop new coffee shops in Argentina and expand more aggressively the number of outlets in Chile.
Colombia is the world's largest producer of mild washed arabica coffee, with annual output of between 11 million and 12 million 60-kilogram bags in recent years. It is the third-largest producer overall, after Brazil and Vietnam.