Taipei, Feb. 2 (CNA) Taiwan's state-run oil supplier, CPC Corp. has been selling coffee at its gas stations since 2018 despite initial skepticism internally, and has found more success recently after bringing its coffee closer to consumers.
Lo Bo-tung (羅博童), who heads CPC Corp.'s product business department, told CNA in January that people within the company cast doubt over the decision to get into coffee nearly four years ago to boost gas station revenues.
Lo convinced them, however, that it was important for the company to find new sources of income given that gas stations were bound to suffer a fall in revenues in the coming years due to the rise of electric vehicles.
Starting with just one shop in Taipei located near a major tourist attraction -- the Shihlin night market -- the service has since expanded to 61 stations, accounting for one-tenth of CPC's 610 gas stations around Taiwan.
In 2021, 600,000 cups of coffee were sold at the 61 stations, mostly through CPC convenience stores located at those stations, according to Lo.
The sales earned extra income to the state-run oil supplier, though Lo did not provide any sales figures.
In 2021, CPC began to sell coffee directly through machines installed on the islands of six gas stations, making it more accessible to motorists, and coffee sales from those machines topped those of CPC convenience stores, Lo said, citing company data.
In December 2021, a total of 92,665 cups of coffee were sold at CPC gas stations, of which 75,008 were sold at the convenience stores and the rest through gas station island machines.
That translated to an average of 2,928 cups of coffee per island machine at the six gas stations where they were installed, double the 1,364 cups of coffee sold on average at each convenience store.
CPC is now hoping to install coffee machines on the islands of 100 gas stations before the end of 2022, and has set a goal of selling a total of 850,000 cups of coffee this year, Lo said.
