Whitbread, the leisure group, has opened its first Costa coffee stores in Eastern Europe.
The sites in Rzeszow, Poland, in Bucharest, Romania, and in Sofia, Bulgaria all opened before the end of January under franchise deals.
The group has also opened three sites in Shanghai, China since it announced plans in June last year to expand into the country through a joint venture covering Shanghai and Eastern China.
The company announced plans in October last year to operate a total of 2,000 of its Costa coffee stores in the next five years, double its original target.
The company currently has around 650 sites in operation and had previously outlined plans to open 1,000 stores by 2010.
The group said that the new stores would be opened both in the UK and international markets.
