PLATO COFFEE: Hot Plato Coffee Brand Brews National Success

In the 1800s, transport riders moving between the coast and the mining towns in South Africa’s north stopped in the Free State to grind coffee beans by hand, boiling natural spring water, and brewing up refreshment. Coffee – moerkoffie – has long been a fuel for workers here.

Through history, as the big metros have grown, and big coffee businesses have taken hold, South African’s love for the caffeine hit has warmed. But for baristas and coffee shop owners, life is not easy. Despite public love for beans, whether at home or at work – where 95% of South African workers see good coffee as a crucial aspect of the environment – getting the product right while fostering a thriving business model has been challenging. Even some of the world’s biggest names in the coffee space have struggled.

Growing a brand is tough. Too hands-on and personality is lost, too distant and quality is diluted. Too corporate and a brand becomes soulless. Too individual and expansion is limited. Finding the perfect balance across owned, franchised, and supply chain is key.

Stephan Bredell, CEO and Co-Founder of Plato Coffee, thinks he has discovered the ideal way to deliver the level of quality that customers want while scaling quickly. Starting out in 2019, while still employed full time in a corporate position, he took his passion from idea to 60 stores, employing 350 people, and providing opportunity, alongside great coffee, all over South Africa.

This entrepreneur found that having fully owned corporate stores alone does not work. But having only a franchise operation is not ideal. Most importantly, he discovered that community must be the golden thread that runs through the entire business, across supply chains and customer networks, and through staff and management.

“We project that we will have 85 stores by the end of the year,” smiles Bredell. “In 2026, we want to reach 150 and by the end of 2027 we want to have 225-250. This is just local, we are in discussions with potential partners in the UK, UAE, and USA. We are also looking at the Netherlands, and it is interesting to see the different franchise applications that come in. We receive around 10 per day and they come from all over the world.”

SIMPLE, EFFECTIVE

Plato’s success, says Bredell, is down to two things: community and simplicity. In his previous role, he was tasked with creating a café/restaurant concept for his employer’s HQ in Pretoria. After doing so successfully, he realised the opportunity in coffee.

“I saw that there were 1000 employees buying around 600 cups of coffee. I quickly had the idea of stripping out the coffee from the rest of the offering and keeping it very simple but in corporate locations.”

The first Plato opened in 2019 and the core of the idea was that things must always be small and simple. Bredell wanted to remove all complexity from the model which he likens to a traditional lemonade stand. “You shouldn’t need more that coffee, water, and some other small inputs,” he smiles. “We focused on sites smaller than 50m², and keeping capex low therefore reducing risk. We wanted to keep the rent below a certain amount while still being accessible and visible.”

After opening across multiple corporate locations, the company gained traction. The coffee was appealing to the local consumer, and the branding was highly effective. Despite opening during perhaps the toughest period for a traditional hospitality/retail business with the onset of the Covid pandemic and the restrictions that came with it, Bredell explains that the situation reinforced belief in the model of small, quality, community-involved operations.

“No one was going to the office so we decided to not only look at corporate shops. We always say that if we had 30 stores before Covid, we would have likely ended up closing because we would have had to close all of those at a very fragile moment.

“We refocussed on community centres, where people meet, rather than big malls. All of our stores are now street facing and, while we don’t have a big walking culture like other countries, we picked locations – such as school runs – where people come together. How many times do you go to a big mall? Not a lot. How many times do you drop your kids at school? Five times a week. We chose very deliberately to create community shops where we are very easily accessible.”

Working closely with franchisees, Bredell was also certain that smaller towns – outside of the city centres – could benefit from something different. Typically old mining towns, locations where Plato has thrived have been for too long underserved with good coffee.

“They have large populations, but they are often not well provided for with many things, including proper coffee. There is high disposable income and little competition. Our top five best stores are in these smaller towns.

“We have a shop in Rustenburg and when we opened the shop, there was a man standing outside looking up at the store saying that he felt like he was in a different country. These towns are so often neglected and they don’t have many things with great design. Bringing the ‘big city’ nicety to the smaller towns has given us a lot of traction. The locals then take pride in what they have and that brings a different kinds of traction.”

NEW OPENINGS

Next on the agenda for Plato Coffee is a new location in Silver Lakes, Kempton Park. Other fresh spots will follow quickly as franchisees come on board quickly. Bredell is also confident about two offshoots that will bolster the offering – Wello, a water brand and wider wellness offering, and a burger brand which is yet to be named. His concept here is again to keep things simple and deliver a high-quality service directly to communities.

“Wello will go across all of our stores,” he says. “It is real spring water and we will also have a reverse osmosis side where we will have shops. After that, we are looking at a burger brand which we will likely launch in Paarl. We want three brands that can live together. When you get a site and you negotiate with a landlord, you can potentially look at bigger sites and your franchisee gets three different options.”

Bredell is also keen to make the most of technology and changing consumer behaviour, brining his offering inline with that of some of the world’s most advanced economies and corporations. Again, this all comes back to engaging a community and encouraging that group of people to take action.

“We are creating communities and when you do that sales become easier because there is trust,” he says, adding that the newest Plato app is set to be launched later this year alongside a new loyalty scheme with all 60,000 current users needing to be migrated to the new system.

“There will be rewards for certain actions – we will launch a cycling club and a running club. When you subscribe to the running club, you will get 20% off at different locations – there are so many layers you can build. The idea would be to earn points for completing certain activities, making it fun. We are also looking at subscription coffee where you pay a large up front annual fee and get, say, 500 coffees for the year alongside other merchandise and perks,” he explains, detailing inspiration from the Discovery model, pioneered in South Africa and enjoyed worldwide.

“The cool thing is that we are putting the point of sale in the user’s hand. If you wake up every morning at 07:30, you know you are 10 minutes away from Plato, you can order your flat white and we can see through geotagging when you are five minutes away so that we can create the order and you simply drop in, pick up and walk out. That allows us to see behaviours and build a profile. We can then send a push notification and start to incentivise people to return,” he says of the most exciting developments going forward.

Ultimately, Bredell wants Plato to become the industry leader through the use of technology. He is ambitious and believes all customers can benefit from modern commercial tools. 

“My dream is to be the first cashless coffee chain in South Africa,” he declares. “We would love to see all of our customers on our app, that is truly valuable. That is where we build real scale as users can credit their account with whatever they want, maybe even Bitcoin. The more we incentivise people, the more people will go cashless and use the app. In time, we expect to announce that you cannot order with cash anymore, and we will rather just have a team of friendly baristas making coffee as orders come in, handing them over as customers arrive, completely transaction free.”

Bringing innovation and pioneering thinking to communities that have otherwise been ignored will be a wake up for other coffee businesses in South Africa that aimlessly franchise their brand around the obvious metros. Plato is a business that is future proofing itself. In the communities that this exciting young team calls home, brilliant coffee fuels people. Clean and inviting spaces offer an alternative to the norm. And the business model remains simple but effective. Bredell is already achieving a mission of fostering communities by offering a haven to bond over an extraordinary coffee brew. The challenge now is to remain focussed on achieving the growth that is set out over the next two years. Where better to sit, relax, be inspired and plan the next step than a bright and motivating Plato Coffee.