“When we started Lift, we had a few non-negotiables,” says Jon Ayache, CEO of the almost three-year-old airline. One was that customers shouldn’t be penalised for changing their flights. Another was that there should always be good coffee on board.
“I’d never had a decent cup of coffee on a plane,” says Ayache. “But I was sure it was possible. We started thinking about who could do it. And Vida was the obvious choice.”
Coffee chain Vida e Caffè, of course, loved the idea. As CEO Darren Levy tells the FM: “We’re all about taking premium coffee to places where people wouldn’t expect to find it ... and where better than 30,000 feet?”
All that remained was for the two teams to make it happen. Brewing espressos on board wasn’t an option but neither was substandard coffee. After weeks of trial and error they came up with a system that worked for airline staff and tasted good at altitude: filter coffee, brewed on the ground, taken to the plane in flasks and served in a signature red cup with a mini chocolate. It was an instant hit. As one travel agent told Levy, customers now ask to fly on “the airline with the good coffee”.
A few months after Lift’s 2020 launch, however, a change in Covid regulations meant airlines couldn’t serve so much as a glass of water on board. Within hours, Levy and Ayache had come up with a plan for passengers to get a free coffee by simply showing their boarding pass at the airport Vida. “Since day one Vida has been very agile,” says Ayache. “Whenever there’s been a problem we’ve always sorted it out really quickly.”
[Vida] came in overnight and turned on a sixpence. You’ve never seen anything like it. Their energy and attitude was something else
— Grattan Kirk
Since founders Rui Esteves and Brad Armitage opened the first Vida on Cape Town’s Kloof Street in 2001, the company has been at the vanguard of the good coffee revolution, always wanting “to produce excellence at scale”. Now Vida is doing it.
From that one company-owned store, the chain turned to a hybrid model of co-owned and franchisee stores, with expansion funded by Vida and its franchise partners.
When Levy came on board in 2015, after Esteves and Armitage had moved on, Vida had 119 stores. Eight years later, the brand boasts 289 stores in four countries. That’s quite something, considering the challenges facing the food and beverage industry.
Its success has been built on a few pillars. “The core of the business has always been great coffee,” says Levy. But the menu also features beverages to suit all ages and tastes, as well as a constantly changing array of food options, all freshly made.
Innovation is another pillar. Levy makes it his business to stay ahead of the curve. As he says, “you have to keep innovating to keep excitement in store and to remain on trend”.
Despite still being “the home of the toastie”, Vida was one of the first brands to embrace gluten-free and plant-based options. It has also gone in hard on sustainability. All its cups, lids and straws are biodegradable, capsules are fully recyclable and the company donates used coffee grounds to NGOs.
“For a brand to be successful, it needs to tick a few key boxes,” says Jeremy Sampson of Brand Finance Africa. “It needs to be distinctive, memorable and relevant. And it needs to offer a good experience and keep on evolving. These are the basics of branding, and Vida ticks every single one.”
One area in which Vida is “outshining just about everyone else”, says Sampson, is on customer experience. As he puts it, “it’s bubbly, the staff are lively, there’s a high energy level”.
How does Vida ensure that every barista — from Plumstead to Polokwane — brings the same chipper vibe?
“It’s like a magic potion within our business,” says Levy, adding: “We always say we serve a shot of happiness with every cup of coffee.”
While the company does make a point of recruiting people with bubbly personalities, he says the high energy levels “perpetuate almost automatically ... It’s a part of belonging to this business, from senior management all the way through to our customers. The vibe feeds itself like a flywheel ... I should know how we do it, but I can’t put it into words.”
Partnerships that take the brand to new customers, like the one with Lift, have been key to Vida’s growth. In 2014, it became the first local brand to offer good coffee on the petrol station forecourt. Initially it had an exclusive partnership with Shell, but it’s subsequently partnered with other oil brands. In total there are almost 70 Vida forecourt stores, some of which are more profitable than its high street stores.
In 2015, the group became the official coffee partner of Discovery Vitality — members still get free coffee for meeting their exercise goals. It also partnered with Builders Warehouse to open full-service Vidas in that group’s stores. Fast-forward five years and it’s up to 19 branches: resounding proof that DIY enthusiasts also value good coffee.
On top of these partnerships, Vida has expanded into retail with an “at-home” range — capsules, beans, various instant products and bottled, ready-to-drink iced coffees — available in supermarkets nationwide. In 2021 it bought healthy fast-food company Sweetbeet, growing the brand from two stores to eight, all in the Western Cape.
During the height of Covid, in August 2020, Vida launched its first of three coffee drive-through outlets at Vaalpark, Sasolburg. It also listed its coffee and food on the Uber Eats and Mr D apps. This had all been planned well before Covid hit, but the timing proved to be impeccable.
And now that the world has returned to normal? “You still wouldn’t believe how many people order coffee for delivery,” says Levy.
Another growth avenue is Vida’s burgeoning partnership with Exclusive Books. CEO Grattan Kirk says that in November 2019 “the coffee partner at our Rosebank store left at short notice. We had a fully equipped café and our customers wanted coffee, but we had no-one to make it for us.”
A few phone calls later and Vida had the espresso machines rumbling. “They came in overnight and turned on a sixpence,” says Kirk. “You’ve never seen anything like it. Their energy and attitude was something else.”
When, shortly afterwards, Exclusive Books needed a coffee partner at its Melrose Arch and Cavendish Square stores in Joburg and Cape Town, it knew exactly who to call. Based on the success of those lift-and-shift rescue jobs, the chain has now partnered with Vida to open glitzy cafés at its new George and Grove Mall (Pretoria) stores, and it will be doing the same with under-construction branches in Joburg’s Eastgate and The Pavilion in Durban.
“They’re an entrepreneurial business with a can-do boss and a can-do team,” says Kirk. “A Vida inside one of our stores can sell 300 cups of coffee in a day. That’s a lot of coffee.”
I wouldn’t be seen dead in some coffee shops but I am very happy to be seen in a Vida
— Jeremy Sampson
The challenges facing Vida are the same as those facing everyone in the food and beverage industry: load-shedding, inflation, the cost-of-living crisis. As Sampson puts it, “all brands are having to sharpen their pencils. People are still getting fast food, but [are] maybe not ordering as much or as often, while the affluent are probably ordering in more than ever.”
Some of the pencil-sharpening is of the nuts-and-bolts variety. Vida recently spent more than R4m installing inverters in stores that didn’t have access to backup power. While Levy is the first to admit that he would prefer no load-shedding and “didn’t want to spend the money”, he also notes that some of his stores have become coffee and Wi-Fi magnets when the power goes out.
Sampson is more interested in the bigger picture. “Most brands fail because they fail to see the future,” he says. “Fashions change, tastes change and people change ... but Vida seems to be doing a very good job of keeping its finger on the pulse.”
And, he adds, “I wouldn’t be seen dead in some coffee shops but I am very happy to be seen in a Vida.”
In addition to all the innovations and partnerships, Levy is focused on expanding the brand across Africa. It’s already in Ghana, Mauritius and Zambia, and in the next few months it’ll open stores in Botswana, Eswatini and Tanzania. In addition to its 289 stores — 116 owned by Vida, 69 on forecourts (67 of them franchised) and 104 franchisees — it’s looking to open a further 40-50 this year. In the next three years the plan is to have 500 stores and a much larger African (and Middle Eastern) footprint.
Sampson approves. “The way they’ve grown it from wholly owned, to franchise, to forecourts, to other countries ... [it’s] the way to go.”
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