History
Tata Coffee traces its origins to 1922 when two coffee plantation companies—Coorg Co. Ltd., London and Pollibetta Coffee Estates Co. Ltd., London—were purchased by Edinburgh-based Matheson and Company and merged to form Consolidated Coffee Estates Ltd., Edinburgh.[10][11] The merger created the largest coffee plantation in India.[11] Consolidated Coffee Estates Ltd. had its registered office at 71 George Street in Edinburgh, Scotland.[12] Ivor Bull, an employee of Matheson and Company, was appointed as the Chairman of Consolidated Coffee Estates in 1936 and arrived in Coorg to manage the coffee plantation.[11] In 1943, Bull purchased Consolidated Coffee Estates Ltd. from Matheson, and registered it as an Indian company headquartered in Pollibeta.[10][11] In the same year, shares in Consolidated Coffee Estates were offered to the general public through a prospectus. Its parent, Edinburgh Company, was allotted the majority stake as a consideration for transfer of its estates. In the following years, the Edinburgh Company divested its shareholdings to the Indian public and relinquished its controlling stake in 1966.[10][11] Bull managed the company until 1966, after which he retired and returned to England where he lived on a farm in Suffolk until his death in 1971.[11]
During 1966–67, Consolidated Coffee Estates was renamed as Consolidated Coffee Limited following the merger of Volkart properties in India, which included four estates, two curing works and an export division with Consolidated Coffee Estates.[10] Tata Tea Ltd. (now Tata Consumer Products) acquired a 52.40% stake in Consolidated Coffee Limited in 1991.[11][13] Asian Coffee Ltd., Veerarajendra Estates Ltd., and Charagni Ltd. merged with Consolidated Coffee Limited in September 1999, creating the largest integrated plantation company in the world.[10] Consolidated Coffee Limited was renamed Tata Coffee Limited on 11 August 2000.[11][13] Tata Coffee acquired a 34.2% stake in Indian coffeehouse chain Barista for inr 260000000 in August 2002.[14]
Tata Coffee acquired 5 tea estates and one coffee estate located in the Anaimalais region in Tamil Nadu from its parent company, Tata Tea, in 2005. In the same year, the company also acquired an instant coffee facility at Theni, Tami Nadu from the High Hill Coffee Company.[10][16] On 25 June 2006, Tata Coffee announced that it had acquired American coffee brand Eight O'Clock Coffee from Gryphon Investors for ₹1,015 crores (US$220 million).[17][18]
Tata Coffee signed an agreement to supply coffee beans to American coffeehouse chain Starbucks in October 2004, which was the first time the latter had sourced coffee beans from India.[19] In February 2013, Tata Coffee and Starbucks inaugurated a roasting and packaging facility at Kushalnagar, Karnataka to supply coffee beans to Tata Starbucks outlets in India and some Starbucks' overseas markets.[20] The 8,258 sq ft facility has the capacity to produce 375 metric tonnes of coffee annually.[21][22]
In March 2022, Tata Consumer Products announced that Tata Coffee would be dissolved as part of a reorganization plan. Under the plan, Tata Coffee's extraction and branded coffee business would be merged with the parent company, while its plantation business would become a part of TCPL Beverages & Foods, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Consumer Products.[23] The merger became effective on 1 January 2024.[24][25] Tata Coffee was delisted from stock exchanges on 15 January 2024.[26]
