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/96901
BREW NEWS STARBUCKS BUYS TEAVANA Sees no conflict with Tazo brand The nation's biggest retail coffee chain has announced plans to buy the nation's biggest retail tea chain for $620 million. Starbucks Corp. will buy Teavana Holdings in a deal expected to close by the end of the year. Teavana, which has about 300 stores, will see its retail presence grow when it comes under the Starbucks umbrella, Starbucks executives say. Starbucks also will sell Teavana products in its stores and distribute them in grocery stores. Starbucks also owns the Tazo tea brand. Chief Financial Officer Troy Alstead told Reuters that Teavana and Tazo are "complementary brands" and the company has yet to decide whether to sell them side by side. PEET'S GETS NEW CEO Hires exec from Weight Watchers Peet's Coffee & Tea has turned for leadership to a veteran food-industry executive whom it hired away from Weight Watchers International. David Burwick, president of North America for Weight Watchers International, will join Peet's as its president and CEO at the end of the year. The move comes only weeks after Peet's, the third-largest U.S. retail coffee chain, was taken private by its new owner, the German investment group Joh. A. Benckiser. Burwick had been a senior executive at PepsiCo for 20 years prior to his tenure at Weight Watchers. He replaces Peet's CEO Patrick O'Dea, who is stepping down after 10 years in the top spot. BIG STOCKS DRIVE DOWN PRICES Arabica hits lowest price since June Arabica prices are low and probably about to go lower, thanks to bumper crops in Latin America and elsewhere. Futures prices touched $1.5345 a pound, the lowest since June, in November before rebounding slightly. One commodities specialist told the Wall Street Journal that prices might drop as low as $1.40. Worldwide exports for the 2011-12 coffee growing season came in at 107.8 million 60-kilogram bags, up almost 3 percent over the previous season. This year's harvest in Brazil, which was completed this fall, reached a record 50.5 million bags. Prices are expected to go still lower when coffee farmers in Colombia, Guatemala and other Latin American nations harvest their beans. According to the Journal, some Brazilian farmers MARK YOUR CALENDAR DECEMBER 5-7 Asia International Coffee Conference, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, www.asiainternationalcoffee.com FEBRUARY 7-9 IWCA III International Convention, Guatemala City, Guatemala, www.iwcaguatemala2013.com 14-16 10th African Fine Coffee Conference and Exhibition, Uganda, www.eafca.org 15-17 World Tea & Coffee Expo 2013, Mumbai, India, www.worldteacoffeeexpo.com 28 – MARCH 2 Tea & Coffee World Cup Asia, Singapore, www.tcworldcup.com/Singapore 6 have been hoarding their beans waiting for prices to rise, but farmers in other countries, whose farms and incomes usually are smaller than their Brazilian counterparts, don't have that option. STARBUCKS ENTERS INDIA Mumbai shop is joint venture Starbucks has opened its first shop in India, hoping that it can help cut into Indians' traditional tea consumption. The world's biggest coffee chain opened an outlet in a fashionable neighborhood in Mumbai on Oct. 19. The 50-50 joint venture with Tata Global Beverages, a division of India's largest conglomerate, is the first Starbucks outlet in the world's second-most populous nation. The joint venture, Tata Starbucks, plans to have 50 stores in India by the end of 2013. Although India is the world's sixth largest coffee exporter, the beverage lags behind tea in domestic consumption, especially in the country's north. Coffee, however, has made inroads. The largest domestic chain, Café Coffee Day, has about 1,350 outlets, and American chains like Gloria Jean's and Dunkin' Donuts are represented there. Starbucks may have to adjust its offerings to take into account the low per-capita income in India, where about two-thirds of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Café Coffee Day sells a regular cappuccino for 61 rupees ($1.13), compared with about $3.50 for Starbucks in the U.S. AMSTERDAM CAFÉS TO KEEP SELLING POT? Mayor claims ban would bring problems The mayor of Amsterdam has declared his intention to keep allowing coffeehouses to sell marijuana and hashish to tourists, despite a new Dutch law phasing out the practice. The drug sales are technically illegal but have long been tolerated in Holland. However, the central government