Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/58144
Caribou answers Starbucks with light roast Extra-dark roast also released on same day Caribou Coffee has countered a recent move by archrival Starbucks by offering its own extra- light-roast coffee. Caribou, the nation's second-largest specialty coffee chain, announced the release of Starlight coffee on Jan. 19. Caribou touts Starlight as its "lightest roast" and describes it as "a well-rounded blend with elegant hints of maple candy and ripe berries... with notes of toasted grains and nuts." In tandem with Starlight, Caribou also released an extra-dark roast called Eclipse. The two new coffees are the first permanent additions to Caribou's lineup since 2009. "We're bucking the trend by developing both ends of the flavor continuum," Alfredo Martel, senior VP of marketing and produce management, said in a statement. "Starlight and Eclipse are the bookends Mark Your Calendar March of our expansive roast profile. They are Caribou's lightest and darkest roast ever developed." The release of Starlight follows Starbucks' addition of Blonde coffee in late 2011. Sara Lee buys all of Senseo, stops U.S. sales Move precedes spinoff of global coffee business Sara Lee has acquired the full rights to the Senseo home coffee brewing system from Royal Philips, in a sign that it is preparing to get further into the single- serve coffee market—outside the U.S. Sara Lee and Philips have collaborated on Senseo, a pod-based single-serve home brewing system, since 2001 on a 50-50 basis, with Sara Lee producing the coffee pods and Philips manufacturing the machines. Under the terms of the buyout, for which Sara Lee reportedly paid $220.5 million, Philips will continue making the machines, but as Sara Lee's contractor. Some 33 million Senseo machines reportedly have been sold worldwide, giving it an 8 percent share of the global market for single-serve home brewing systems. The worldwide leader is the Nespresso system from Nestlé, with 35 percent. Domestically, the leader is the K-Cup system owned by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which controls more than three-quarters of the U.S. market. Sara Lee is planning to discontinue selling Senseo machines in the U.S., except for Internet sales, by the end of March. The move parallels the company's plans to spin off its international coffee business this year. It sold its domestic coffee business to J.M. Smucker Co. in a deal that was completed in January. In an interview with Reuters, Sara Lee Executive Chairman Jan Bennink conceded that the Senseo's image needed rehabilitation. He called it "a very unsexy machine" and said, "If I talk to my daughter and ask her if she wants a free Senseo machine, she says 'No thank you, Pop.'" 9-11 Coffee Fest New York, Javits Center, New York City, www.coffeefest.com 18-19 Cafe Biz 2012, Australian Technology Park, Sydney, Australia, www.cafeculture.com/cafe-biz-info 22-24 National Coffee Assn. Annual Convention, Charleston (S.C.) Place Hotel, www.ncausa.org 23-25 Tea & Coffee World Cup, Vienna, Austria, www.tcworldcup.com 28-29 UK Coffee Leader Summit, Millbank Tower, London, England, www.ukcoffeeleadersummit.com 18-19 Specialty Coffee Assn. of America Annual Exposition and Symposium, Portland (Ore.) Convention Center, www.scaa.org 27-29 London Coffee Festival, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London, England, www.londoncoffeefestival.com 4-6 Melbourne Int'l Coffee Expo, Melbourne, Australia, www.internationalcoffeexpo.com 8-10 Coffee Fest Chicago, Navy Pier, Chicago, Ill., www.coffeefest.com 11-15 Int'l Conference of Coffea Canephora, Espirito Santo, Brazil, www.conferenciaconilon.com.br 28-30 Guangzhou Int'l Coffee Fair, Guangzhou, China, www.chinacoffeefair.com/en/index.aspx 6 | March 2012 • www.specialty-coffee.com June May April Leonardo DiCaprio has coff ee brand Proceed to benefit environmental causes Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has become the latest in a series of celebrities to establish a coffee brand. The "Titanic" star, in collaboration with roaster La Colombe Torrefaction, is putting his famous moniker on a coffee line called Lyon. The Arabica beans for Lyon will be grown in the mountains of Haiti, Ethiopia, Peru and Brazil with sustainable agricultural techniques, according to a statement from La Colombe. The proceeds from the sale of Lyon coffee, funneled through DiCaprio's charity foundation, will go to support various environmental causes, including clean water, disaster relief, endangered animals and green energy. Lyon coffee is available for now at Whole Foods and Williams-Sonoma stores and at La Colombe cafés, as well as online. Other celebrities who recently have lent their names to coffee brands include movie and Broadway star Hugh Jackman, director David Lynch and pop musician James Murphy.