CCD Hyderabad mourns founder's demise

Hyderabad: Café Coffee Day, usually glowing with the colour red, has turned into black in remembrance of its founder the late V G Siddhartha. On Wednesday, CCD employees across Hyderabad and others had a black ribbon on their uniform, representing the loss of their Captain.

The official handles of CCD on social media that has over 4.9 million likes on Facebook, over a lakh followers on Instagram and over eight lakh followers on Twitter replaced its profile pictures to the black and white logo.

Well known for a heart on the coffee served for customers, CCD employees are in disbelief and from last two days expected the 60-year-old founder to return, till the news of his body being recovered was known.

Speaking with The Hans India, Tirupati Rao the store manager of CCD, remembered the founder when he had visited Hyderabad. "The 50,000 employees working for CCD are grateful to Sir. When he visited the main CCD branch in the city, I had an opportunity of seeing him, though could not meet him personally. Sir had a smiling face and was very friendly with the employees," Rao said.

Many others echoed the feeling and put forth their gratitude for giving them an opportunity in securing a financially supportive job. CCD is also known as the first few to adopt the philosophy of providing employment to the specially-abled.

Another employee said, "when we got to know that he is missing, we hoped that he would return. But, today with his body being recovered, the team has got very emotional. In my two years with CCD, I never regretted working here."

Not only does CCD has employees associated with them for years, but there are employees shifting from other professions to work with this brand. Poornima, quit her job with an insurance firm, who has joined CCD 20 days ago.

She says that the organisation has a better pay package that is received without any delay, which made her to join here. CCD was founded in 1996, and very soon became the Starbucks of India, along with generating employment to many.