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Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

bbc.com

81–90 of 104 posts

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#81
post #6

I’m kind of surprised post-sales tax nexus Amazon hasn’t bought a coffee chain yet. Starbucks might be too big to do comfortably, but a combination of some higher end local brands (Intelligentsia, Philz, etc) aggregated into some overarching metabrand would be interesting. Let the cafes run everything as they have, with infinite capital available, and focus on providing additional value added services on premise (obv…

There's already a fairly quiet family-owned company that's been aggregating coffee chains and coffee roasters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAB_Holding_Company

They've got Peets, Mighty Leaf, Intelligentsia, Stumptown, and Caribou. They also have the Espresso House chain in the Nordics, Krispy Kreme, Panera, and Einstein Bagels.

Keurig is also under their umbrella, as are a bunch of other coffee roasters, and other consumer products.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#83
post #30

Do american coffee chains do things like cappuchino, latte, flat white, etc? Or is it mostly black filter coffee?

Flat white is (or at least was) an Australian thing. Never seen it anywhere else (though I suppose it might be spreading). But, Starbucks has everything else (and then some).

It's everywhere now. Costa have recently launched flat blacks and flat mochas too.

No, it doesn't have to make sense...

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#84
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me how difficult it is (relative to the drink complexity) to order a regular black coffee at a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.

Depending on where you are, a "regular" black coffee could also be an espresso. A drink which was made by adding water to it and removing the crema (the horror!) from it is the standard in some places. So, it's best to disambiguate it and I suppose that's why they force you to do that. To be honest, I never go to starbucks. So, I don't know if that is the case - I'm speculating from no real data.

Australia was so annoying on that front. On the whole amazing coffee, but no one served filter or french press coffee, After two weeks I was dying for a nice large cup of black coffee.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#85
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and Australia demonstrates that it doesn't have to be like that. In most similar verticals we are very similar to either the UK, the US or both. Take McDonalds: incredibly successful fast food shop in Australia. That American success story works here, as does KFC and Domino's. But when Starbucks arrived, it was a hilariously dismal flop because we already had sufficiently good coffee at all of our local non-c…

Am I seriously thinking about going to Australia just to visit a McDonald's now?

We have the best McDonald's in the world. I'm universally disappointed whenever I visit it in other countries.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#86
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I seriously thinking about going to Australia just to visit a McDonald's now?

We have the best McDonald's in the world. I'm universally disappointed whenever I visit it in other countries.

I wouldn't go that far, but they are pretty good. Still can't believe there are places where you can get lamb at a mcdonalds.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#87
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, even 'coffee' with milk is... the calories of milk. and I like a lot of milk in my coffee. or... I like a bit of coffee with my milk, to be more precise. so i've needed to watch how many I have. can't really deal with plain black coffee.

you should really have a go at persisting with black coffee - it's definitely acquired, but I really can't imagine coffee any other way.

Yes, I didn’t get into coffee till college and sugary stuff was my gateway, but I knew people enjoyed black coffee and made a concerted effort to develop a taste for it, and now I really can detect subtleties in single origin beans similar to what wine enthusiasts experience. Occasionally I have coffee with milk, especially if it’s bad coffee, but my taste buds thinks of that as something else entirely. Find a coffee shop with some helpful but OCD baristas who will take the time with you to give you good samples of pour over or French press or chemex, etc to see if they can win you over to “black” coffee. The benefits in the end outweigh any effort you might have to put in!

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#88
post #62
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US coffee chains have a bewildering range of coffee based drinks, almost to the point where ordering a plain black filter coffee will get you weird looks.

It amazes me how difficult it is (relative to the drink complexity) to order a regular black coffee at a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.

What? I do it all the time. I say "I would like a large black coffee", and then I get a large black coffee.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#90
Interesting move, and interesting infographic there about chains in Europe and US. Noted McCafe doesn't register in US stats, but maybe that's because McDonald's coffee (no small play) is really inside the restaurants and McCafe was the route in the EU for shop sizes etc
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