Coffee War Brewing
Recently a blind taste test took place pitting 5 national brands and their respective coffees. Restaurant giants, McDonalds and Burger King, have entered the coffee fray in a very big way. Both fast-food joints recently introduced new higher-end blends, hoping to cash in on Americans' growing thirst for caffeine to go.
And the move by the two food superpowers has not gone unnoticed by their coffee-purveyor counterparts. Dunkin' Donuts continues to move upscale, remodeling its stores and adding the kind of fanciful coffee drinks pioneered by Starbucks, while Starbucks moves downscale, adding drive-through windows and mini-coffee bars inside stores like Target.
The effort by fast-food joints to improve their brews comes at a time when we're buying more coffee at restaurants and other outlets. The U.S. coffee market reached $26.2 billion last year and that number will jump to $34.4 billion in 2010. All the coffee war combatants, including smaller convenience stores, continue to roll out a slew of variations to battle each other and to stave off soda and caffeinated drinks like Red Bull. Flavored coffees, lattes, and coffees that look more like desserts are available everywhere. There's even coffee within a coffee -- Dunkin' Donuts' Turbo Hot is an espresso shot added to its regular brew.
Burger King launched its new coffee -- BK Joe -- in October and McDonald's responded in March with a new premium blend. Both restaurants hope that better coffee will boost sales of their breakfast sandwiches and lure those customers who just want their morning java. In the past, coffee was not exactly a bright spot for either restaurant. McDonald's coffee was perhaps best known for a high-profile court case in which a customer claimed she was scalded when a cup of McDonald's coffee spilled on her lap.
And Burger King used to let individual franchise owners choose the type of coffee served and the machinery to produce it, delivering brew that varied restaurant to restaurant. Burger King restaurants now sell BK Joe in three strengths, using a coffee machine that makes the 100 percent Arabica blend from concentrate.
The big coffee kahunas aren't exactly sitting back to wait for their market share to drop if the fast-food restaurants begin to take a bite out of their revenues. Both companies recently went beyond their typical coffee and a doughnut or coffee cake fare, hoping that customers with a hankering for an Egg McMuffin will think twice. In January, Dunkin' Donuts introduced an omelet sandwich and Starbucks also began to roll out warm breakfast sandwiches in select locations.
Any way you look at it, consumers have plenty of java choices these days. And if the battle heats up further, we might see even more. See NorthJersey.com for the full story.
