Caffeine, Narvesen and Lietuvos Spauda CEO: Norwegians rescue business and more than 700 employees

Delfi spoke with the CEO of the company about the consequences of the pandemic, the decrease in turnover, the support received and the expected future development.

– Mr. Bartaševičius, how was the company affected by the first quarantine? Could you compare the situation with the second?

– For us, the first quarantine was harder than the second. Our billing dropped 80% the first time and 50% the second. It’s by numbers, that’s easier.

Additionally, during both quarantines, our employees were and are in downtime.

– What was the main reason for survival of the second quarantine and is it even easier?

– Since we are also located in airports, they were completely closed during the first quarantine, so we lost a lot (income – ed.).

Another thing, if we compare the number of billing drops, 80 and 50 percent, in 2020 we opened several new cafes, seven: one on Kudirkos Street, Savanorių Ave., Kaunas, a couple of airport cafes, in the new neighborhood of Paupis, Uptown bazaar ”. These open cafes helped reduce the overall decline, although of course costs also increased.

But for us, the turnover decreased less during the second quarantine and also because we did additional things. We also launched an application of this type, when the company can offer coffee to its employees at a discount, we expanded online commerce and sold tools for preparing coffee.

– You mentioned new places opened during the pandemic. And what about investing in such a difficult time?

– In this place, what differentiates us from other companies is that our Norwegian owners look at the situation quite soberly and say that a pandemic is something inevitable that we will emerge from and that everything will be fine, they did not stop the investment, so we did what that was planned before.

We are expanding regularly, so those vacancies were not related to a pandemic, we just did not cancel or change our plans, although, in fact, no one thought that this situation would last a year.

When you make investments, sign contracts, start preparations earlier, everything has started, but now we are looking for new points. In a few weeks we will open a new Caffeine cafe in Antakalnis.

One of the values ​​of our owners is that we live without debt. This means that they have no debts with the bank. That’s when COVID-19 came in, they had money in reserve to help their companies that needed it, and they helped us right away. If we were to wait for help from the state here, I really don’t know how we would have survived.

– Can we say that the Norwegians saved the situation?

– Managed more than 700 Lithuanian employees and businesses. I have no idea how our other colleagues are and how they will be when it comes to starting to pay taxes that can now be waived, of what. It seems to me that it will be very, very difficult for many more here.

– And how did it go with the support of our state? Did you get help?

– We apply for employee downtime subsidies, only now we receive money for November and not even all, but part. Everything is far behind.

We have also requested support from the first business aid package, but we do not know anything yet and do not have any information.

The general support provided by the state can be evaluated in two ways. One thing is, when you say that there is a large company here and there are restrictions on getting support, it is such a treatment that if a large company needs less support, which, in my opinion, sounds a little strange.

We have a total of just over 700 employees in these three brands, so if a company of this type “collapsed”, it would be 700 employees free and affected at the same time. I’m not saying that small companies are less important, but large companies also incur large losses.

– Do you currently feel any recovery in trade? At first glance, when you see the lines at Caffeine outside, you may think there is no shortage of customers.

– The total figures do not show recovery. Of course, it happens that another better day appears, but the queues are not because we have endless customers, but because there are restrictions and we cannot let them in and then they stay outside.

On the other hand, a lot of people don’t buy that coffee because it’s just cold to wait outside, and if it could be made inside, they would buy it.

Either Narvesen or Caffeine, but the restrictions are very painful for us.

– When do you expect relief? Do you think the business will recover a bit in the summer?

– I mean the summer will be good, better. As I tell our employees, “he who looks to the past turns his back on the future.” So we have to look to the future and think that it will be bright and that is why we invest in new places, we rebuild them.

The bad times will continue to pass, people are intelligent creatures and will find a way to control the virus, but I don’t know if it will happen this year.

– Are you also planning an expansion in 2021? How many new places are you going to open?

– 5 points. They will mostly be caffeinated coffees, but if we have a good deal for the point, there may be more.

– Overall, what are the biggest challenges you see for businesses today? As I understand it, if you are planning an expansion, there is no question of survival today.

– We do not consider whether to survive or not. The shareholders of this place help us a lot and we thank them, but what we need is that people can go to our points of sale, that they can buy, that they can go out, that they come back. to the offices. We need liberation because those who sit at home don’t buy anything, we need liberation.