Cooks Global Foods has signed a master franchise agreement with PT Pangan Asri Indah, a move that will see the Esquires Coffee Houses brand enter Indonesia. 

Forty outlets are set to open within Indonesia over a 10 year period, and it is expected Jakarta will recieve the first four stores within 12 months.

The Purwantono family including Hari Purwantono, managing partner of Ernst & Young for Indonesia and a commissioner of the Jakarta Stock Exchange, funded the investment.

The business will be operated by his son, Adi Prabowo.

According to Cooks’ executive director, Stuart Deeks the Indonesian deal took many months to complete.

“We finalised terms last month but the entire agreement was subject to approval of Esquires as a franchisor by the Indonesian Ministry of Trade. That condition has now been satisfied and we are on our way,” he said. 

Deeks is confident in the success of the Esquires brand in the region, despite the presence of coffee chains including Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Gloria Jean’s.

“The Indonesian market presents an exciting opportunity for a new, clearly differentiated brand such as Esquires, which has an organic and fair trade focus.

“We are entering the market while the coffee shop industry is still in its infancy. We have done a lot of work in the Middle East to ensure all our products have the proper Halal certifications and this will ensure we hit the ground running in Indonesia,” he added.

Cooks’ New Zealand subsidiary, Design Environments will design all of the stores in Indonesia.

The New Zealand-based company is set to continue to grow the Esquires brand overseas – last week it entered into a conditional agreement to acquire all of the shares of its Esquires China franchisee, and it also recently signed a new master franchise agreement in Northern Cyprus.