This will cover a range of coffee products, such as beans, roast and ground coffee, coffee pods and RTD Costa Coffee. Coca-Cola and Costa will also offer a range of coffee machines and other services.
The packaged products will be launched in at least 10 new European markets - including Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Switzerland - under Coca-Cola bottler Coca-Cola HBC.
Coca-Cola acquired the Costa coffee empire earlier this year, seeking to grow its presence in the coffee category.
Hitting the ground running
Coca-Cola HBC says coffee is one of the most lucrative and fast-growing revenue and profit pools within commercial beverages. It is already a multi-billion dollar category across its 28 markets and is forecast to grow 4% annually.
Coca‑Cola HBC CEO Zoran Bogdanovic said: “Adding a brand as strong as Costa Coffee to our portfolio will allow us to capture more consumer occasions, to partner even more closely with our customers across all channels and strengthen our ability to address every drinking moment throughout the day. Our well-established infrastructure, processes and capabilities around coffee means that we will hit the ground running with this exciting opportunity.”
Coca-Cola will not, however, open new coffee shops under these plans: saying it is focusing its expansion plans on RTD and vending products (Costa already has stores in Poland, Ireland, Czech Republic, Russia, Hungary, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Latvia).
Costa Coffee RTD
The launch of chilled RTD canned Costa coffee in the UK was the first major product launch since Coca-Cola completed its acquisition of UK-based Costa Coffee in January. It has since been launched in Poland and China – markets where Costa already has a strong presence.
The Costa Coffee line line has three variants: classic latte, caramel latte and black Americano.
