Business
Taco Bell tries to woo younger customers with Live Más Café’s flashy beverages
IRVINE, Calif. — Taco Bell is going all in on beverages, starting with its Live Más Café concept.
The Yum Brands chain unveiled the drink-focused store format last December, with the first location in Chula Vista, California. Ten months later came the second location, near the University of California, Irvine campus. By the end of the year, Taco Bell is projecting that it will have 30 Live Más Cafés in its portfolio, across Southern California, Dallas and Houston.
Unlike McDonald’s now-defunct CosMc’s spinoff, which had its own standalone locations, the Live Más Café lives inside existing Taco Bell restaurants. Customers order at kiosks and can watch the “bellristas” assemble their drinks from behind the designated counter, which takes prime real estate in the store. The drink menu includes a range of beverage options, from blended coffees to lemonade-based drinks.
The beverage-focused concept is supposed to help the Mexican-inspired chain reach its goal of generating a $5 billion drink business by 2030. Taco Bell first disclosed that target in March at an investor day, where the chain shared more about its plans to keep growing as it fuels Yum’s operating profit growth.
So far this year, Taco Bell has sold more than 600 million beverages, up 16% from the year-ago period, according to the company. More than 60% of the chain’s orders this year have included a drink, Taco Bell said.
“I think drinks are big right now because I think people are really craving unique, interesting flavors in their beverages, and we hear that all the time from our consumers,” said Liz Matthews, global chief food innovation officer for Taco Bell.
Center stage
Taco Bell’s Live Más Café.
Courtesy: Taco Bell
Stepping inside the Irvine location, the Live Más Café beverage station is the clear star.
Most of the self-order kiosks are positioned in front of the station’s long counter. Customers have a free view of the “bellristas” making their specialty drinks, unlike the restaurant’s other employees who assemble Crunchwrap Supremes and Chalupas hidden from sight.
Digital menu boards across the restaurant highlight the beverage offerings. The drink menu spans four distinct categories: churro chillers, specialty coffees, refrescas and “bellrista favorites.”
The churro chillers are creamy and cold milkshakes topped with churro chunks. The specialty coffees come either hot, iced or blended as a “chiller.” Brightly colored refrescas use either lemonade, green tea or Rockstar energy drinks as the base for their fruity flavors, such as strawberry passionfruit or mango peach. And the “bellrista favorites” include seasonal options, such as the autumnal caramel apple empanada churro chiller, which incorporates blended chunks of Taco Bell’s apple empanada.
When crafting the menu, Matthews and her team tried to stick to the chain’s Mexican-inspired roots, but she said Taco Bell will always have a “playful spirit.”
And while the Live Más Café offers plenty of options with a variety of flavors, Taco Bell kept the options to customize minimal.
“What we found when we talked to consumers, they actually really want us to curate their drink for them,” Matthews said.
To date, the Irvine location’s top-selling drinks are the Mexican Chocolate Churro Chiller, the Dirty Mountain Dew Baja Blast Dream Soda and the Mango Peach Agua Refresca. Six of the top 10 bestselling drinks at the location are chillers. That’s a reversal from the initial test location in Chula Vista, which has seen similar demand for every drink category, according to Matthews.
Since its opening day in September, the Irvine location has been selling more than 900 drinks per day, according to Taco Bell. More than a third of orders include an item from the Live Más Café menu.
Meanwhile, the Chula Vista location — which exceeded its initial sales forecast by four times — is selling more than 750 beverages a day nearly a year since its opening, the company said. A quarter of all transactions include a Live Más Café beverage, according to Taco Bell.
“Given what we’re seeing right now from the business results, the payback looks really attractive and in line with what our franchisees would expect for something big, but we’ve got a lot more to learn,” said Taylor Montgomery, global chief brand officer of Taco Bell.
‘Little treat’
This year, the hottest trend in fast food hasn’t been a chicken sandwich or plant-based burgers. Instead, beverages of all consistencies, colors and nutritional values have taken the spotlight.
For example, Shake Shack is selling lemonade with mini raspberry popping boba, inspired by the success of bubble tea. Panera Bread is testing frescas and energy refreshers in select bakery-cafés. Chick-fil-A is planning to open Daybright — a beverage-focused restaurant with specialty coffees, smoothies and cold-pressed juices — in Hiram, Georgia, later this year. And although McDonald’s this summer wound down its spin-off called CosMc’s that focused on drinks and snacks, it also tested new coffee drinks, refreshers and flavored sodas at more than 500 U.S. restaurants.
The number of beverages sold by the top 500 chains has climbed more than 9% in the last year, according to Technomic. The swell of beverage innovation follows the speedy expansion of a number of a specialty drink chains, from upstart 7 Brew Coffee to dirty-soda inventor Swig.
“[Quick-service chains] have seen that there’s a big opportunity with an entire generation and how they’re interested in that ‘little treat’ culture,” said Claire Conaghan, “trendologist” at Datassential, which tracks menu trends. “There’s options to kind of go beyond their focus area of core meal and really lean into that snacking moment.”
Generation Z and millennials are driving the trend, according to Varchasvi Singh, a foodservice analyst for Mintel. Younger generations enjoy customizing their food and beverage orders.
“Among younger consumers, in particular, we see that fast-food dining is just as much about experimentation and novelty as it is about indulgence,” Singh said. “They’re a lot more open to trying premium menu items and personalizing their orders, whereas older generations, who have associated fast food with extreme affordability for a long time, are a little bit more critical of how expensive it has become for them.”
For Taco Bell, turning to beverages and creating the Live Más Café is part of its broader plan to appeal to younger consumers, whose spending power is projected to increase rapidly in just a few years.
“Over the past five years, we’ve really, really been transitioning and thinking about the brand and how to position it for Gen Z, and so Café was really born from that,” Montgomery said. “I think it’s something like 60% of Gen Z consumers come to a restaurant or [quick-service restaurant] for an afternoon treat.”
Rather than creating a standalone Live Más Café, Taco Bell chose to put the sub-brand inside existing restaurants in part because of “humility,” according to Montgomery.
“Today, we’re not known to be a beverage destination — yet,” he told CNBC.
Live Más Café can also help Taco Bell more broadly.
“It also acts a little bit as a test market where they can get some more real-time data. Which combos do people do the most?” Conaghan said. “Which customizations matter the most? Do we need every type of alternative milk or maybe just these one or two? Do we need all 15 flavors of whatever energy refresher?”
That’s already started happening. Taco Bell’s agua frescas, which began as a Live Más Café menu line, have since been launched nationwide.
“They’re one of our top-selling items, and we didn’t wait to scale the Café,” Montgomery said. “We pushed those in all the restaurants, and we’ve seen success there.”
Plus, the coffee options on the café’s menu are part of Taco Bell’s plan to make a bigger push into breakfast. The chain started serving the morning meal more than a decade ago but told franchisees last year that they could opt out serving breakfast; for some fast-food operators, opening early isn’t profitable, plus there’s the added headache of finding staff willing to work the morning shift.
Taco Bell has already had some success with another sub-brand. Its Cantina format, typically found in cities, features a custom menu, alcoholic beverages and seating meant to encourage customers to linger. Since opening the first location in Chicago a decade ago, Taco Bell Cantina has grown to dozens of restaurants.
Broadly, even as inflation-weary consumers pull back their spending, Taco Bell’s focus on new menu items has lifted its sales; earlier this year, the company announced plans to double innovation in 2025. Taco Bell’s prices have climbed 75.5% since 2019, according to Technomic’s Ignite Menu. Still, customers keep coming back.
In recent years, Taco Bell has been the gem of Yum’s portfolio, typically outperforming both Wall Street’s expectations and its sister chains, KFC and Pizza Hut. Executives have named the chain as one of the company’s primary growth engines. In the second quarter, while many fast-food rivals reported shrinking sales, Taco Bell reported same-store sales growth of 4%.
“From a portfolio standpoint, we represent a pretty significant amount of Yum’s operating profit, but we learn a lot from other brands, too,” Montgomery said.
Yum is expected to report its third-quarter earnings before the bell on Nov 4.
Watch the video to learn more about why Taco Bell is betting on drinks.
Gold and silver prices have continued to drop sharply in a “brutal” sell-off after hitting record highs in recent weeks.
The precious metals began falling on Friday in response to US President Donald Trump’s nomination for the incoming chairman of the Federal Reserve.
His choice for former Fed governor Kevin Warsh to replace current chairman Jerome Powell when his term ends in May soothed some investor nerves, which boosted the US dollar but saw appetite for safe-haven investments gold and silver slump in response.
Gold and silver suffered their worst trading days for decades on Friday and were down heavily again on Monday, with spot prices off by another 7% and 11% respectively at one stage.
Silver had plunged by nearly 30% on Friday and gold dropped over 9% in its worst one-day drop since 1983.
Gold and silver had been enjoying a record breaking rally as investors sought refuge amid global geopolitical uncertainty, conflict and tariff woes.
Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, said: “The sell-off has been far more brutal than I, and many, expected.”
He added: “For silver, the rally on the way up was faster than gold’s, so the correction on the way down is faster too.”
Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, added: “If the sell off continues, then gold and silver are at risk of eroding their losses for the year so far.
“The historic move lower in silver prices has not stemmed a fall at the start of this week.
“Traders have not yet found a level that they are happy to buy the dips, and the timing of Chinese Lunar New Year in mid-February could accelerate the sell off, as Chinese traders reduce risk ahead of the holiday.”
UK and US stock markets are expected to open in the red on Monday, as the gold and silver rout has a knock on effect on mining giants, while Brent oil was also 5% lower.
Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Mining stocks are likely to feel the heat as metal prices scramble to find a floor.
“Oil prices are also trending the wrong way for investors in commodity-focused companies.”
Mumbai: Lower revenue as a share of GDP has been more than offset by cuts to subsidies and spending on current schemes, leading to the smallest fiscal consolidation in six years, likely positive for growth, a new report has said.
The fiscal consolidation for FY27 is the slowest in six years. And the budgeted disinvestment, which is a below-the-line funding item, is likely to see the highest rise in six years, the report from HSBC Global Investment Research said.
“The central government continues with fiscal consolidation, though signing up for a gentler path for FY27; the fiscal impulse will likely turn neutral after several years in the negative, and this should be good news for GDP growth,” the research firm added.
The report said that the services sector was the focus of the Budget, “with ambitious plans and increased outlays for medical institutions, universities, tourism, sports facilities, and the creative economy.”
Urban infrastructure saw a renewed push with each City Economic Region (CER) set to receive get Rs 50 billion over 5 years.
Seven new high-speed rail corridors will connect major cities, the report noted, adding large cities will also get an incentive of Rs 1 billion if they issue municipal bonds worth more than Rs 10 billion.
The report highlighted policy priorities, saying, “new manufacturing sectors were given incentives, namely biopharma, semiconductors, electronic components, rare earth corridors, chemical parks, container manufacturing, and high-tech tool rooms.”
Direct taxes are expected to grow faster than nominal GDP while indirect taxes will expand more slowly, with gross tax revenues budgeted to rise about 8 per cent year‑on‑year, the report said.
Central government set a fiscal deficit target of 4.3 per cent of GDP for FY27 after a 4.4 per cent estimate for FY26, and nominal GDP growth was pegged at 10 per cent.
Business
India’s $5 trillion economy push: How ‘C+1’ strategy could turn country into world’s factory
New Delhi: India is preparing for a major economic transformation. The Union Budget 2026-27 lays out measures that could make the country the top choice for global manufacturing using the popular ‘China +1’ (C+1) strategy. This comes as international companies rethink supply chains after COVID-19 disruptions, rising trade tariffs and geopolitical tensions.
India has positioned itself as the backup factory for the world that is ready to absorb international demand in case of any crisis in China or Taiwan.
The government has offered tax breaks for cell phone, laptop, and semiconductor makers, making India more attractive to foreign investors. Reducing bureaucratic hurdles for global firms, the budget also strengthens the National Single Window System to simplify business procedures. The message is clear: India is ready to step in as a global manufacturing hub, ensuring supply continuity for the world.
The expressway to a $5 trillion economy
China presently dominates about 40% of global manufacturing. Its factories supply critical products worldwide, but 2026 is expected to be a turning point. Expanding influence and economic opacity have made global companies seek alternatives.
India has leveraged this moment, offering a comprehensive incentive package for foreign manufacturers. Analysts call it more than policy; it is a blueprint to become a $5 trillion economy and reclaim India’s historic position as a global industrial leader.
Why the world needs India now
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the dangers of over-reliance on a single supplier. When China halted medical exports, nations realised the need for diversified supply chains. Major companies such as Apple and Samsung now see India as a dependable alternative.
China’s aging workforce and rising labour costs further enhance India’s appeal. With 65% of its population under 35, India offers a vast, skilled and affordable workforce for decades. The geopolitical uncertainty surrounding Taiwan, which produces 90% of advanced chips, has also created demand for a secure manufacturing backup. India is stepping in to fill that gap.
How India stands to gain from China’s challenges
India’s budget, 2026-27, slashes import duties on cell phone and laptop components, turning the country into a hub for component manufacturing, not just assembly. Electronics exports are projected to cross $120 billion by 2025.
The government has also launched a Rs 1.5 lakh crore semiconductor mission, attracting companies like Tata and Micron to establish advanced chip plants in India. In the chemical sector, stricter environmental regulations in China have shut down several plants, benefiting Indian companies such as Privi Specialty and Aarti Industries, which are now filling gaps in global supply chains.
Incentives for companies
The Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme promises cash rewards for output, covering over 14 sectors. This is India’s answer to Chinese subsidies. From land acquisition to electricity connections, the National Single Window System now enables businesses to clear all approvals through a single portal.
Infrastructure investment has also received a massive boost, with Rs 11.11 lakh crore allocated under PM GatiShakti. New ports and dedicated freight corridors are being built to ensure that exports from India reach the world faster and cheaper than ever before.
India’s moves points to a strategic shift in global manufacturing. By rolling out the red carpet for foreign companies and investing heavily in infrastructure, technology and policy reforms, the country is poised to become the go-to destination for global supply chains. The C+1 formula is not only a concept; it is a roadmap to turn India into the next industrial superpower and a $5 trillion economy.
Grammy host Trevor Noah receives stern response from Trump after Epstein dig
NHL outdoor game sees its 1st goalie fight between Vasilevskiy, Swayman
Gold and silver sell-off gathers steam in correction after record highs
-
Sports6 days agoPSL 11: Local players’ category renewals unveiled ahead of auction
-
Entertainment5 days agoClaire Danes reveals how she reacted to pregnancy at 44
-
Business6 days agoBanking services disrupted as bank employees go on nationwide strike demanding five-day work week
-
Tech1 week agoICE Asks Companies About ‘Ad Tech and Big Data’ Tools It Could Use in Investigations
-
Fashion1 week agoSpain’s apparel imports up 7.10% in Jan-Oct as sourcing realigns
-
Sports5 days agoCollege football’s top 100 games of the 2025 season
-
Politics1 week agoFresh protests after man shot dead in Minneapolis operation
-
Business1 week agoShould smartphones be locked away at gigs and in schools?