COFFEE is an integral part of Filipinos’ daily lives. A cup of this top favorite beverage is perfect to drink anytime of the day, hence, there’s no stopping for it to come in various forms and sizes to quench the thirst and craving of every coffee connoisseur.
Joining the fray is Lyger Coffee, a five-month-old brand that offers the market with premium flavors. This newbie adds to the ever expanding choices for a caffeine fix that is expected to grow further nationwide in the coming years as consumer spending is projected to increase by 8.1 percent annually from 2022 to 2025 on the back of strong preference of middle-income households for higher quality coffee.
Little step
THE beginning of 2022 saw the birth of Lyger Coffee when its four originators came to realize the local market’s craving for good quality coffee that is both sophisticated to drink and convenient to bring anywhere.
Made from 100 percent Arabica coffee beans from Colombian mountains, what separates it from the other brands is its being the first-ever crystallized coffee in the Philippines. It undergoes an innovative process of freeze-drying, which brings out the best in the coffee beans: clear-cut flavors and aromas at a much higher level than regular dried ones.
Apart from this crystallization method, what make it a stand out are the brand’s convenience and class. To bring out these two elements, the team came up with the idea of serving it in mini cups.
“We thought about how we want to make the coffee taste really good, and we went through different options of beans,” said Lyger Coffee co-founder Philipp Renner. “Then, you can just take these tiny cups with you wherever you go, and you just need any kind of liquid, water, or milk to make your coffee. You can use cold or hot liquid and then you have your own coffee within literally 20 seconds.”
Little did they know, this handy drink is now setting a new trend in the local coffee scene not only by its cute and Intagrammable cups, but also because of its rich taste and the right kick for every sip.
Brewing success
LYGER is made for coffee lovers by the most exacting coffee aficionados themselves. Currently, it’s available in Americano and Latte flavors.
To bring this world-class coffee right to the Filipinos’ fingertips, the Lyger team searched for a perfect partner to do the delivery for them. Renner recalled: “When we started looking at the market, like who is there and who can do fulfillment—to be honest, it’s quite limited. There are not many companies who can do it, and there are not many who can do it well.”
Luckily, his co-founder, who has been in the country for years, understands the market very well and with a big network, got a good recommendation.
“Locad was a top referral from people we know who have already worked with them. They’ve all had very good experiences with Locad. It was a very easy decision for us to go with Locad,” he shared.
Since it’s responsible for their orders’ logistics and delivery, the team is just focused on production and their operations. Because they can really depend on it in bringing their products to the customers, it’s helpful to lessen their overhead costs and enable them to avoid unexpected newbie problems.
“When I say reliability, I mean that you have the certainty that orders are fulfilled within a certain amount of time that is reasonable. And by actual fulfillment time, I mean that when you book it just yesterday, most of those orders get fulfilled within the day or within every 10 hours. So that fulfillment actually happens and then the customers receive their orders within a reasonable time,” he said.
Renner also lauded Locad’s communication and control tower system that allows them to respond immediately to requests and facilitate a streamlined fulfillment process. He explained: “It’s like you have something like a perfect integration with your store online that perfectly syncs and then there’s also a way to look at it via a dashboard.”
Leapfrogging forward
FOR the customers to enjoy every cup of its coffee even further, Lyger plans to add more items in the coming months. Complementing this product expansion, the team also enhanced its products with sustainability in mind.
In collaboration with a local nongovernment organization, Lyger has launched the Return Your Mini Cups Program which turns used mini cups into construction bricks. To enjoin patrons in this recycling advocacy, it gives away freebies to those who send back 50 empty mini-cups.
Heeding the customers’ call to go “green” even more, the team recently changed Lyger’s plastic box packaging to a more sustainable recycled paper material. What’s more, it looks forward to continue partnering with Locad to further improve its logistics system.
“They are very open to feedback. They have already implemented some changes based on our feedback not just on our system but also on those of their other clients,” Renner stressed.
With its growth trajectory—business-wise—Lyger is poised to expand into other markets in Southeast Asia soon.