Tomoro Coffee Opens in Jakarta With a 4,150-Store Southeast Asia Target

This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on August 10, 2022.

Tomoro Coffee opened its first global store in Jakarta, Indonesia, on August 9, 2022. The brand had previously been rumored to be incubated by J&T Express as a new business opportunity for longtime partners in its franchise network.

At launch, Tomoro Coffee had opened at Landmark Pluit and PIK Avenue in North Jakarta. Its Instagram account also indicated that a Bekasi store would open soon.

J&T had previously incubated Y.O.U, a beauty and personal-care brand in Southeast Asia. J&T Express said Tomoro Coffee had no relationship with the courier company. However, on opening day, J&T founder and former OPPO Indonesia CEO Li Jie appeared in support of the brand and recorded promotional video content offering one free coffee per day from August 9 to 15.

Pricing and Menu

Tomoro Coffee’s app showed the following prices:

• Latte: 22,000 Indonesian rupiah, about RMB 10
• Americano: 15,000 Indonesian rupiah, about RMB 7

The brand also sells non-coffee drinks and snacks.

Industry observers noted that if Tomoro sources local Indonesian coffee beans, the pricing may create operational challenges. Indonesia’s local coffee-bean supply chain was described as relatively basic, meaning Tomoro may need to define bean standards and coordinate local roasting factories to build a stable supply system. That matters because the expansion model appears to be franchise-led.

A Large Southeast Asia Expansion Plan

Tomoro Coffee opened later than earlier plans suggested, but its ambition remained large: to become the biggest coffee chain in Southeast Asia.

The plan cited in the article targeted 4,150 stores by October 1, 2023, including:

• Indonesia: 2,000 stores
• Vietnam: 500 stores
• Thailand: 500 stores
• Malaysia: 500 stores
• Philippines: 500 stores
• Cambodia: 100 stores
• Singapore: 50 stores

For operators, the scale and speed are the core issue. Even with access to resources associated with J&T’s Southeast Asia network, building a strong coffee chain and helping franchisees make money requires fundamentals: store execution, supply chain consistency, training, and unit economics.

Competitive Context

At the time, three Indonesia-originated coffee chains were gaining traction in Southeast Asia: Kopi Kenangan, Fore Coffee, and Flash Coffee. Flash Coffee later moved its headquarters to Singapore, while Kopi Kenangan became a unicorn.

Tomoro Coffee was also recruiting actively and had attracted people with years of foodservice experience.

Many Southeast Asian coffee-chain models had drawn lessons from Luckin Coffee in China, although online payment and digital pre-order penetration in Southeast Asia was not yet as high as in China. Early positioning and consumer education were seen as key to capturing market upside.

Competition was intensifying in Southeast Asia and in China’s coffee-chain market. China had seen many emerging coffee chains, while tea-drink chains were also entering coffee. Mixue had already spent more than four years building in Southeast Asia, with more than 1,000 stores in the region. The article suggested that after reaching a certain domestic scale, brands such as Lucky Cup could also move overseas and use Mixue’s Southeast Asia franchise and supply-chain infrastructure to expand quickly.

The article’s view was that when Chinese coffee chains eventually enter Southeast Asia at greater scale, regional competition may only just be beginning.

Note: The store targets and forward expansion figures above are historical figures reported in August 2022.