The Subko Story

Subko resists easy categorisation. 

The brand is rooted not just in India, but in the subcultures of South Asia. It is defined not by a conventional brand strategy, but by a cultural statement. Subko’s first outlet in Bandra, Mumbai, was notoriously hard to find. The obscurity wasn’t accidental; it was symbolic.

Much of this comes from founder, Rahul Reddy’s perspective as a diasporic South Asian. Reddy grew up in the USA and worked in Europe as a development economist, before returning to India.  “From yoga to chai, the traditional symbols of South Asia’s contribution are well-recognised globally,” he says, “We asked ourselves how we can make this cultural identity relevant for a new generation.”

Starting with Coffee 

Subko opened its doors in 2020 in Mumbai, with specialty coffee and craft bread.  Subko Cacao, a range of chocolates, followed in 2023. On the heels of a $10 million raise, led by Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, the company is set to open a cafe in Bengaluru in 2024.  

The first wave of Indian coffee-based cafes spearheaded by Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), was followed by a second generation of brands like Blue Tokai, and more recently Third Wave. While these brands featured Indian beans and produce, they embraced a minimal design sensibility that was similar to their Western counterparts. Subko, says Reddy, represents a new generation of brands who are designing their experience ground up, keeping their culture and identity at the forefront. 

Can we change the paradigm of a specialty coffee shop? Did it have to reflect your experience in Copenhagen or in London or New York to be legit? What if we could build an exportable brand that clearly originated from the subcontinent, but would succeed in other countries. What would that look like? How could it become a cultural phenomenon around the world? That was the kind of thinking that drove the design of Subko’s experience. 

Rahul Reddy, Founder, Subko

At the same time, Reddy is clear that Subko is building on the shoulders of giants. “If CCD hadn’t come in and created a cafe and coffee drinking culture, maybe a Subko wouldn’t exist,” he says. 

Designing Subko 

Reddy worked closely with designer Aniruddh Mehta of Studio BigFat,  to realise his vision for Subko. Eschewing a “reductive”idea of India, Subko’s visual identity draws on colours, textures, images and typography that evoke the subcontinental terroir and ethos. To express the region’s linguistic diversity, for example, Subko’s design language combines elements from Sanskrit, Anglo / Western and Islamic typographic traditions.

Recalls Mehta, “For the longest time Rahul and I would just have conversations about Subko and what it could be, without jumping into sketches or design. Even in the design phase, I would share ideas and say what do you think? It was a very collaborative process, because Rahul was clear that design is foundational to Subko.”

How can design be simple, but not basic? How can you make a statement without shouting? How can you be global without losing your identity? These were the questions that led us to Subko’s final design solution. From there, the execution of the different interfaces took  experimentation and trials with manufacturing processes to get the details right.

Annirudh Mehta, Founder, Studio BigFat

One interesting outcome of this unconventional approach was a change in the form of the coffee pack. Most artisanal coffee is sold in brown, gusseted bags. Subko chose to go with a box. “The box is tactile, differentiated, and elevates the product,” says Mehta. “It has become something you’d want to gift.”

For the packaging design, Mehta explored the printed paraphernalia of the subcontinent, from posters and flyers to shipping labels and bus tickets. The pack label – an instantly recognisable element of Subko’s identity – is screen printed. This allows for a deliberately unfinished look that can only be achieved by manual processes. Each label showcases scripts native to the region from where the beans are sourced.

Subko now has an in-house design team that is responsible for the brand’s creative output. Their approach is to see each pack as a canvas that can reference the product’s provenance through design. The team has also experimented with pack innovations, where, much like you tip a barista, customers can scan a QR code to make direct payments via UPI to farmer partners and express their appreciation.

Entering a New Category

When Subko decided to launch chocolates, Mehta was asked to come in again.

“The task was to do justice to the chocolate category, while extending Subko’s design language,” says Mehta. Again, a new form factor was introduced – horizontally oriented bars versus the more common, vertically oriented ones. The two-tone identity, multiple scripts and a suitably modified label provide common ground between Subko’s coffee and chocolate packaging, while creating visually rich packs for the latter through processes like foil printing.

Crafting a Product Brand

Reddy sees Subko as a multi-product brand, with a unique retail experience footprint. “I don’t think we are setting out to create a massive network of stores, with super-optimised floor space,” he says. 

Subko’s current products are defined by sourcing and influences from the subcontinent, and this will be the case in the foreseeable future. “It is actually a hard thing to do. My partner, Daniel Trulson, is a maven when it comes to baked goods. We could have just opened a French patisserie. Similarly, it would be much easier for us to source Colombian coffee or Ghanian cacao, but we are staying true to our mission of sourcing from the Subko Khandaan” points out Reddy. An example of this is Project Everest, where Arabica beans have been sourced from family-run farms in Nepal.

Subko’s content initiatives – from their Instagram account to special publications, feature a consistently gritty, editorial style, which is a far cry from the glossy collateral typically associated with premium F&B. 

“We want to go beyond our own content creation and make Subko a platform that showcases the creative work of our community. Can we take this beyond sipping a coffee or gifting chocolate. Can we create an ecosystem?” muses Reddy. One floor in the brand’s Bandra cafe for example, is a projection room, where you can pull up a chair and soak in the atmosphere as well as some interesting content from independent creators.

Future Growth

Although Subko has never done any significant advertising, their focus on design, cultural cues and storytelling has created latent awareness, even in markets outside Mumbai. This reputation will prove to be an advantage as the brand tries to attract new communities. 

Subko’s growth will also test whether a brand rooted in a cultural mission can sustain its identity while expanding to bigger markets. The path that Subko has chosen cannot be faked or engineered – it can only be taken forward by true believers in the ethos. This will require that the founders successfully transfer their vision to a bigger team. 

“Will Subko ever open in a mall or be available on supermarket shelves?,” is our final question.

“It is entirely market-dependent, ” answers Reddy honestly. “Our ambition is to close the circle we started by expanding not just in India, but also in locations where there is a strong Indian diaspora. We want people to experience Indian products of the highest standard created by design interventions at every level – from the farm to the product, from the packaging to the content and experience. The world targets the subcontinent – can we reimagine the subcontinent for the world?”