Costa readies ‘At Home’ product range
Costa is preparing to launch an ‘At Home’ product range that will extend its brand beyond its coffee houses and Costa Express vending machine business and into supermarkets and homes for the first time.
The Costa At Home brand could include a diverse range of products including beans, instant and ground coffee and Costa branded ready made drinks.
It will launch in the UK later this year and could role out internationally.
The venture will sit within Costa’s Enterprises division, which was created in December as part of a restructure that saw the business split into three separate divisions.
The Enterprises division, which is headed up by Costa’s former group marketing director Jim Slater, is forecast to deliver around 25% of the group’s growth.
The brand and logo have been trademarked under categories as diverse as coffee machines, roasters, beverages and ice cream.
Costa declined to comment at the time of writing.
The move follows in the footsteps of rival Starbucks which launched its instant coffee variant Via Ready Brew in 2009. The instant coffee was first available to buy exclusively in Starbucks coffee houses, but is now available in major supermarkets and online.
Starbucks then went on to launch a range of bottled Frappuccino drinks available in supermarkets.
Costa’s owner Whitbread is also rumoured to be preparing to spin off the coffee chain after a reshuffle of its senior management that saw the group’s former financial director move to head up Costa as managing director, fuelling existing speculation that the business would split.
Total sales at Costa increased by 25% to £786m in the year to 16 February, including a 5.8% rise in like for like sales. It operates 1,200 UK stores, 160 stores in China and India and almost 1,000 Costa Express vending machines following the acquisition of Coffee Nation in March 2011. It aims to have 3000 Costa branded machines by 2016.
