Brands
The Tata group and Starbucks Coffee Company strengthen partnership
MUMBAI: In a meeting at Starbucks Reserve® Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle, Washington, chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks Coffee Company, Howard Schultz, and chairman, Tata Sons Limited, Cyrus Mistry, announced multiple new joint initiatives , which expand the existing Tata and Starbucks relationship and strengthen the companies’ commitment to developing the Tata-Starbucks brand and building a different kind of company in India.
For the first time, Starbucks will offer a single-origin coffee from India in the U.S., giving customers from outside the country a unique opportunity to experience a rare, small-lot coffee from the Tata Nullore Estates located in the beautiful Coorg coffee growing area of India. Starbucks Reserve® Tata Nullore Estates will be the first coffee from India to be roasted at the Starbucks Reserve® Roastery and Tasting Room and will only be available at this Seattle location later this year.
“These announcements build upon the incredible success and shared values between Starbucks and Tata in our partnership in India,” said Schultz. “We are humbled by the way in which customers in India have embraced Starbucks elevated coffeehouse experience, which now spans to more than 80 stores across six cities. As we continue on our journey with Tata, we are delighted to introduce the finest coffee from India to a new audience. Starbucks Reserve® Tata Nullore Estates, the first ever Starbucks Reserve® coffee sourced exclusively from India, highlights the deep coffee heritage and expertise of both companies to source, roast and distribute the finest-quality arabica coffees and elevates the story of India coffee for our customers.”
Starbucks also announced plans to increase its coffee roasting capacity for supplying its stores in India and, over time, select markets around the globe. Since Tata Coffee Limited opened its doors to a roasting and packaging plant in Kushalnagar in Coorg, Karnataka, in 2013, this facility has steadily increased its roasting capabilities. Today, it roasts Starbucks® India Estates Blend and Espresso Roast coffees and will soon expand to include both Kenyan and Sumatran coffees for Starbucks stores throughout India. This builds upon Tata and Starbucks commitment to cultivate a future supply of high-quality, sustainable green coffee from existing and potential sources in India through world-class agronomy practices.
“We are proud to work with Starbucks, a company which shares our commitment to both the coffee growing regions and the coffee farmers to ensure we meet the global demand for high-quality coffee over the long-term,” said Mistry. “Our journey with Starbucks since 2012 has been gratifying and we are pleased to build on the strong relationship between Starbucks and the Tata group as we continue to further advance Indian coffee around the globe. We are honored to be sourcing the finest Indian coffee and introducing Starbucks customers outside India to its quality for the first time.”
Brands
LINC Limited appoints Hitesh Singla as head of marketing
The writing instruments giant has hired Hitesh Singla as head of marketing, betting on his two decades of brand-building firepower to ink a bolder consumer story
KOLKATA: LINC Limited, the Kolkata-based writing instruments manufacturer with a footprint spanning more than 50 countries, has appointed Hitesh Singla as its head of marketing, a hire that signals the company’s intent to fight harder for consumer attention in one of India’s most fiercely contested stationery categories.
Singla arrives with over two decades of marketing muscle behind him, having built, revived and scaled brands across consumer durables, personal care, healthcare, retail and houseware. His CV reads like a tour of Indian and global brand management: he introduced and grew Stabilo, UHU and Rapid in the Indian market, helped revive product categories for Revlon, and most recently served as head of marketing at KAI India, where he sharpened the brand’s presence in personal grooming and houseware.
Before KAI, Singla held leadership roles at Godrej & Boyce and the Avantha Group, among others, organisations where scale, complexity and consumer diversity are non-negotiable realities.
At LINC, he will own the company’s end-to-end marketing strategy: brand equity, integrated campaigns and consumer engagement, all calibrated to a market that is shifting fast. His approach blends data-driven insight with what he calls creative storytelling, precisely the kind of bilingual fluency that legacy brands need when nostalgia alone will no longer do the heavy lifting.
“LINC Limited holds a strong legacy in the writing instruments category,” said Singla, “and I look forward to building on this foundation to further strengthen its brand relevance in a rapidly evolving market. The focus will be on driving sharper consumer insights, innovation-led marketing, and creating deeper engagement across touchpoints.”
An alumnus of Punjab University with a master’s degree in international business, Singla is said to be as comfortable with cultures, languages and history as he is with a campaign brief, a disposition that may serve him well as LINC pushes deeper into global markets.
For a company that already sells pens across five continents, the real challenge now is making consumers care which pen they pick up. Singla’s job is to make sure it is a LINC.
