Flash Coffee taps ex-Foodpanda CEO in turnaround bid

After a rough couple of years, tech-enabled coffee chain Flash Coffee has hired former Foodpanda CEO Jakob Angele as its executive chairman in a bid to hit profitability.

The firm, still headquartered in Singapore, liquidated its operations in the city-state last October, while it sold its Thai business the following month. The chain has also left Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Image credit: Tech in Asia

Having previously expanded to more than 200 stores across Asia Pacific, the exits leave Flash Coffee with just 67 outlets – all of them in Indonesia. But the firm is going all in on its remaining market, where Angele says the vast majority of its stores are EBITDA-positive.

Still, Indonesia remains a highly competitive battleground for coffee chains. Other than fellow venture-backed brands like Kopi Kenangan and Fore Coffee, Flash Coffee would have to face newer upstarts as well as foreign chains like Cotti Coffee, which was founded by former Luckin Coffee executives Lu Zhengyao and Qian Zhiya.

Pruning stores

In his latest interview with Tech in Asia, Angele says that Flash Coffee increased its revenue per store figure by more than 50% from February 2024 to June 2024. At the store level, the business was operationally profitable after marketing expenses.

“We currently don’t provide a timeline on group-level EBITDA, but with the strong results from H1, new menus, new stores, and strong operational focus, we are confident we will reach profitability soon,” he adds.

Store closures were part of the reason behind the revenue increase. As of November last year, Flash Coffee had 93 stores in Indonesia, but the figure now stands at 67.

Many of the closed stores were profitable during the Covid-19 pandemic but could not maintain it once the period subsided. Of the remaining stores, Angele says 95% of them are profitable on an EBITDA basis.

A Flash Coffee outlet in Bandung, Indonesia/ Photo credit: Flash Coffee

“At the end of 2023, the team did a lot of hard work in rationalizing the footprint based on the new global funding environment,” he explains, adding that this year has been about fine-tuning the cost structure and focusing on growth again after a period of belt-tightening.

See also: Flash Coffee defends Singapore exit, says regional biz in good shape

This strategy is not unheard of. Fore Coffee, for instance, found its expansion plans halted by the pandemic and had since recalibrated its way to profits. The same can be said for Kopi Kenangan.

Brewing a comeback