A familiar kiosk abroad
View(s):
Amidst a serious dollar crunch, an essentially Sri Lankan speciality is going global: Chaiwala Colombo is now in Dubai
Chaiwala Colombo opened its doors in Sri Lanka a little over one and a half years ago in the midst of the pandemic. Amidst a lot of customer support, the brand got very popular and soon started getting many franchise requests.
“We had our Dubai outlet opening last month, and things are in operation now. The response has been great. Dubai is a place where you have a lot of communities, and a lot of cultures, but the moment you say tea, everyone thinks of Sri Lanka,” said Shehan Sameen, Director, Chaiwala Colombo, and an apparel industry professional.
“Sri Lanka’s tea has a reputation of its own. So the response has been great, but it will take some time as this is a very competitive business: in every corner you have a tea shop in the UAE, even though it’s a very warm country. People love having tea; some have like 7-8 cups a day. It is very competitive, but as long as we maintain the quality and consistency, I’m sure we can do well,” added Sameen.
“At our opening, we had a lot of walk-in customers, and when we casually asked them “what made you come into this store, with a lot of cafes around?” what really surprised us was that when we said Colombo, they said, “Sri Lanka is a country with quality, we know you guys won’t compromise on quality,” he said. “ A lot of good brands come out of Sri Lanka; especially when it comes to tea and apparel. And we hope that we can maintain the same.”
Chaiwala exports the tea from here to Dubai. “Obviously there are a lot of locally available teas in Dubai, but it has to benefit our country at the end of the day. Especially in a situation like this.”
Chaiwala is an Indian term for tea maker, but it’s now a globally used term. A tea maker can come from any part of the world, points out Shehan who went on to explain how this venture came about: “One of our directors works in Dubai; through his contacts a company in the UAE approached us, and said they wanted to have our franchise. That’s how we went international.”
Offers to open a franchise have been coming locally as well. “Here in Sri Lanka too we get a lot of offers to franchise. But the thing is we are currently operating from one kitchen, and we have 5 outlets in Colombo. We have franchise requests from outside Colombo, like Kandy and Galle. For us to do that, and to maintain the consistency and quality of the products, we’ll have to do kitchen setups, and it’s a lengthy procedure. So for the moment, we have decided not to do franchise in Sri Lanka but to keep control because we want to maintain the same standards.”
The systems here are a bit lacking. “Here mostly we got requests to franchise from individuals, not companies. In Dubai, it was a solid company. We were really thrilled to work with a big company like that. Obviously, we had our own systems in place too.” This particular franchise was set up with MIS Food & Beverage UAE.
“When they use our brand the product has to be ours too. The chai recipe goes from Sri Lanka. Even when it comes to the food, just like KFC and McDonalds come from the US, we have a recipe batch going from Sri Lanka. They are not allowed to use any of their raw materials. When it comes to milk and things like that, we have nominated people, so it has to be sourced only from them. They can’t do any add-ons or anything without our approval. It’s a proper franchise set-up.”
For Chaiwala Colombo, the point of this franchise is that instead of having one outlet abroad they could expand across the GCC – Gulf Cooperation Council – through this venture. “Initially we are looking at kiosks within malls in Dubai. That’ll be the same concept as in Sri Lanka; we’ll have a centralised kitchen. And we’ll be doing the distribution from there. If it’s a kiosk we can’t have all the varieties because space is limited. So we have to study the market and see what our best sellers are, and based on that demand we’ll have to decide what we are going to offer.”
It was the pandemic that made six friends create this business. Coming from various industries, they found themselves with more time on their hands and decided to grow their passion: tea. One was a pilot who had fewer flights and more time. Some worked from home.
“COVID made us sit at home more. And that’s how we started this business on Marine Drive with a tuk tuk. We wanted to kill time, but the response was so great. And there was so much support, that’s why we are where we are today. It’s been really great. Even after the pandemic there were a lot of challenges, like back to back curfews, the country’s economic situation, the fuel shortage, then inflation. It was pretty challenging, but we were able to adapt and our team was strong. The six of us, directors of the company, we were really involved, and luckily we had a very dedicated staff. We were able to adjust and adapt according to the situation and survive.”
All six are back to full-time work in their regular jobs.
Chaiwala Colombo has other international offers to franchise coming in. “We have franchise requests coming in from other countries too, but we are at capacity at the moment. We have to take small steps. But we would like to see Chaiwala Colombo all over the world. Taking the Sri Lankan brand global.”
Searching for that next furry family member but couldn’t find one in your area? Hitad.lk has the solution with our extensive listings of dogs for sale in Sri Lanka!