``We are exploring various possibilities to promote branded products in major international markets. But the modalities for the purpose are still being worked out. One of the major locations wherein the company plans to acquire coffee estates are Africa,'' Consolidated Coffee Ltd senior general manager Harish Bijoor told The Financial Express.

In India, Conscofe has been in the realm of consumer marketing for the past six years. ``In these six years we have come out with a total of seven branded offerings, making our presence felt in every single segment of the coffee market. Building a global brand is definitely on our agenda,'' he added.

``We have offered brands for the traditional coffee markets of South India in our initial launches. Some of our later launches coverbrands for the non-traditional markets of the North and the East. The domestic coffee market has been in favour of South India, with as much as 91 per cent of the volume coming from this part of the country,'' Bijoor said.

``In keeping with this skew, our efforts behind our brands have been similar. We concentrate in South India with our three main offerings of Coorg Pure Coffee, Tata's Coorg Double Roast and Tata Kaapi. Tata Cafe is the brand offering for the Rest-Of-India markets,'' he added.

In South India, there is a more recent palate memory of good coffee. Quality products, offering unique brand propositions certainly do appeal to the South Indian consumer. This does not mean that the company targets only regional markets. Tata Kaapi, with a name that is so distinctly coffesque and South Indian has just been launched in Mumbai markets. ``If difficult brand names such as Alpenliebe can make an entry into our collective psyche, who says a Tata Kaapi is difficult?'' he pointed out.

In the next twoyears, the Conscofe marketing effort is set to realise all the tough initial brand-seeding effort it has undertaken in these past years. ``A host of plans are on the anvil and the year ahead is going to see a lot of these being unveiled,'' he said.

The company's investments have been in the area of building viable brands in each of the four segments of the coffee market, investing on the retailing front, and most certainly in the area of vending machines.

Declining to divulge more details about the marketing activities for the next fiscal, he said: ``We have a series of initiatives breaking with effect from May 1999. There is a lot of excitement. All this excitement is best left packaged. Only to be opened later and thereby preserving the element of surprise when the time arrives!''

The company grows its own coffees on estates, the collective acreage of which makes Conscofe Asia's single-largest coffee plantation company. It cures its own coffees through state-of-the-art processes. The company has acoffee-curing capacity of over 32,000 tonne per annum spanning three choice locations in South India. It has a total of three factories, two for the roast and ground coffee variety, one each in Bangalore and Hyderabad. In addition to these, it has an instant coffee plant at Hyderabad.

Regarding the company's recent campaign building the world's biggest coffee mug, he said it was a dream. The Mug-event attracted world-wide attention. The television coverage itself that the event attracted, runs into crores of rupees if one was to put a value on that.

Further, apart from top-line benefits, the Mug has a lot of below-the-line potential which is currently being exploited. ``The Limca Book of Records already features it and we are waiting for the Guinness evaluation to be completed,'' he said. The company covers two lakh plus outlets across its area of branded operations. With Conscofe's focus already on percolating reach across national centres, it is only a matter of time before its brand's aroma wafts theglobe too.