Case Analysis - Coca-Cola & Costa Coffee

Coca-Cola Brews a Hot Acquisition: Costa Coffee

Case

Author: Ahmed Maamoun

Online Pub Date: January 15, 2020 | Original Pub. Date: 2020

Subject: Marketing, International Marketing, International Strategic Management

Level: | Type: Indirect case | Length: 3624

Copyright: © Ahmed Maamoun 2020

Organization: Coca-Cola Company| Costa Coffee| Starbucks | Organization size: Large

Region: Northern America, Eastern Asia, Northern Europe | State:

Industry: Manufacture of beverages| Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles

Originally Published in:

Publisher: SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529724554 | Online ISBN: 9781529724554

© Ahmed Maamoun 2020

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Abstract

The Coca-Cola Company, created in 1886, is the world’s largest beverage corporation, offering over 500 brands to consumers in 200 countries. The company’s revenues and profits have been dwindling over the last decade, due to the shrinking soda market, as consumers are turning away from sugary drinks, and cities are imposing soda taxes. While carbonated soft drinks (CSD) sales are declining, coffee consumption is on the rise. In August 2018, Coca-Cola decided to get a USD 5 billion shot of caffeine, and acquired the British coffeehouse Costa. The acquisition was finalized in January 2019, and now the U.S. beverage giant has access to almost 4,000 Costa stores in 32 countries. Coffee is the second most-traded global commodity after oil, and the United States is the largest coffee market in the world, with 450 million cups consumed daily. The possibilities are endless with Coke’s new global coffee platform, and the acquisition is likely to have a ripple effect for major coffee chains like Starbucks. What will transpire next?

Case Learning Outcomes

After discussion of this case, students will be able to:

• explain the importance of an ongoing growth strategy, even for the most prominent and successful multinational corporation;

• describe how mergers and acquisitions could be utilized to compete in an increasingly global and competitive market;

• highlight the significance of watching market trends and adapting accordingly; • demonstrate comprehension of the complexity of expansion decisions and the factors involved in

choosing a growth strategy; and • recognize the challenges involved in starting and running a retail operation.

The Coffee Industry

Coffee 1 was not always a mainstream global beverage, simply because it could only be grown in roughly 20 countries possessing the ideal growing conditions for coffee trees. These countries are found around the globe along the equator, also known as the “Bean Belt.” By the 19th century, trade and exchange connected coffee-producing colonies to consumers in Europe. Originally, the upper classes consumed most of the coffee, as it symbolized not only wealth and taste but also privileged access to foreign imports. Over the next century, coffee transformed from an elite delicacy to a beverage for the masses. As its popularity grew, Europe and North America increased their coffee consumption significantly. After World War II, the average U.S. consumer drank 48 gallons of coffee a year (twice the current consumption). This was soon to change as soda drinking quadrupled over the following decades, while coffee drinking declined (Olshan, 2013).

Until the 1960s, nearly all U.S. consumers purchased their coffee at supermarkets and grocery stores. During the late 1960s, some entrepreneurs established stores carrying hard-to-find gourmet food items, such as specialty coffees, aimed at wealthy customers. Some of these shops even roasted their own coffee to control the degree of roast and keep the coffee fresh. By 1969, the United States had about 50 specialty coffee stores. Throughout the 1970s, the industry experimented with roasting beans darker to make a more distinct coffee than the lighter supermarket roasts. Thus, many consumers came to associate dark roasted coffee with gourmet coffee. Decaffeinated coffees became a popular seller during the 1980s with 17% of the population drinking it by 1988 (Video 1). The market for flavored coffees emerged in the mid-1980s, causing producers to add flavors, such as cocoa, vanilla, or hazelnut in liquid or powder form, to coffee beans. Because adding flavor required some capital investment, specialty shops sold the flavored coffees at a higher price (Buzby &

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Haley, 2007).

During the early 1990s, some companies started websites to sell coffee beans over the Internet. Most industry firms became creative to increase market share. They ran catalog sales departments, added retail locations, and competed for new wholesale clients such as restaurant chains and supermarkets. Some roasters created private label blends for their institutional customers. Starbucks’s Nordstrom blend, for instance, was created for the upscale department store chain. Securing corporate accounts became increasingly important because the principal place for drinking coffee in the late 1990s was the workplace.

Watch Video 1: Moscow on the Hudson (1984)—Coffee Scene, where Robin Williams stars as a Soviet immigrant living in the United States. Checking the coffee aisle in the local supermarket became an overwhelming experience because of the broad assortment!

Two industry breakthroughs occurred in the early 2000s when coffeehouses like Starbucks and Caribou, and new technologies like Keurig pods, slowly became an integral part of the coffee culture in the United States. Starbucks Corporation began in 1971 with one store in Seattle, Washington. Three entrepreneurs—Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin, and Zev Siegl—founded the business. They named it after a character from Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick who was obsessed with coffee, and they developed the now iconic mermaid logo. Starbucks originally sold bulk tea and specialty coffee beans by the pound. The business’s idea for coffee bars started in 1984 from the company’s marketing director, Howard Schultz. 2 A year later, Schultz quit his job to start a chain of espresso cafes like those he had seen in Milan, Italy. He called his cafes Il Giornale, 3 and over the next 16 months, he would open seven stores throughout Seattle. All served Starbucks coffee in a style that mimicked what he had experienced in Italy. In 1987, Schultz bought Starbucks from its three founders for USD 3.8 million. By 2018, the company had 28,000 locations in 75 countries and 291,000 employees. Revenue that year was USD 24.7 billion.

In an effort to compete with Starbucks in the breakfast business, Burger King and McDonald’s introduced upgraded coffee blends, brewing procedures, and packaging. Burger King launched its BK Joe branded, made-to-order coffee program nationwide in October 2005, while McDonald’s started selling its premium coffee in 2006 (Perez, 2013).

By 2017, the retail value of the U.S. coffee market was estimated at USD 48 billion with specialty coffee comprising approximately 55% of sales, or USD 26.4 billion (National Coffee Association, 2017). The Specialty Coffee Association defines specialty coffee as “a coffee that has no defects and has a distinctive flavor in the cup.” With specialty coffee doing so well, many firms were flaunting their offerings in this category. For example, McDonald’s relaunched its McCafes with a new line of caffeine-powered drinks: Caramel Macchiato, Cappuccino, and Americano, all for a limited time for USD 2 (Diamond, 2017).

Globally, in 2017, the coffee industry was estimated at USD 60 billion, and the world’s four largest coffee exporters were Brazil (5.7 billion pounds), Vietnam (3.6 billion pounds), Colombia (1.8 billion pounds), and Indonesia (1.5 billion pounds). In fact, coffee was the world’s second most-traded commodity after oil (Smith, 2017). This growth was fueled by booming specialty coffee sales.

Coffee is arguably the most popular beverage in the world, with more than 400 billion cups consumed each year. More than 450 million cups of coffee are consumed daily in the United States. In 2018, 64% of U.S. consumers drank a cup of coffee every day, up from 62% in 2017. In absolute terms, the United States is the largest coffee market in the world; on a per capita basis, however, it’s not even in the top 10 (Smith, 2017). Interestingly, Scandinavia boasts the highest per-capita coffee consumption in the world. On average, people in Finland drink more than four cups of coffee a day. The biggest coffee drinkers are Finland (12 kg of ground coffee per capita per year), Norway (9.9 kg), Iceland (9 kg), Denmark (8.7 k), the Netherlands (8.4 kg), Sweden (8.2 kg), Switzerland (7.9 kg), Belgium (6.8 kg), Luxembourg (6.5 kg), and Canada (6.2 kg).

The Coca-Cola Company

The Coca-Cola Company, created in Georgia in 1886, is the world’s largest beverage corporation, offering over 500 brands to consumers in 200 countries. Until the 1960s, the company offered one beverage, Coke,

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and aimed it at the entire soft drink market. Today, the beverage behemoth offers hundreds of products to market segments based on diverse consumer preferences for flavors, calories, and caffeine content. Although the company has diversified its product lines, Coke remains the industry leader. A sample of the different products, brands, and flavors offered by Coca-Cola in the U.S. market is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Coca-Cola Product Portfolio

Flavor/type Brand Name

Cola Coca-Cola (Coke)

Diet/sugar-free cola

Diet Coke/Coca-Cola Light Tab

Coca-Cola Zero Sugar

Coca-Cola Life

Caffeine-free cola Caffeine Free Coca-Cola

Cherry-flavored cola Coca-Cola Cherry

“Pepper” style Mr. Pibb

Pibb Xtra

Orange

Fanta

Minute Maid

Simply Orange

Royal Tru Orange

Lemon-lime Sprite

Lemon & Paeroa

Other citrus flavors

Mello Yello

Vault

Fresca

Lift

Lilt

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Ginger ale Seagram’s Ginger Ale

Root beer Barq’s

Cream soda Barq’s Red Creme Soda

Juices

Minute Maid

Fruitopia

Simply Orange

Iced tea Gold Peak Tea

Fuze

Sports drinks

Powerade

Aquarius

Vitamin Water

Energy drinks

Full Throttle

NOS

Relentless

Burn

Bottled water

Dasani

Kinley

Smartwater

Source: Coca-Cola Website (https://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/products/)

In the last decade, Coke’s market share has risen from 17.3% to 17.8%, while its main rival’s, Pepsi, has dropped from 10.3% to 8.4%, according to trade publication Beverage Digest. Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi have both lost ground, but Diet Coke is still far ahead (Beverage Digest, 2019). Coke and Pepsi have fought over the past decade to win market share from one another, as overall sales dropped. As summarized in Table 2, Coca-Cola had a net revenue of USD 35.4 billion in 2018. That’s a 15% drop in revenues from the previous year. Profits suffered as well and plummeted by a whopping USD 5 billion, or 80%.

Table 2. Coca-Cola’s Rank, Revenues, and Profits (2016-2018)

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Year Rank Revenues (USD million) Profits (USD million) Assets (USD million) Employees

2018 87 35,410 1,248 87,896 61,800

2017 64 41,863 6,527 87,270 100,300

2016 62 44,294 7,351 90,093 123,200

Source: Fortune Magazine (www.fortune.com/fortune500/coca-cola/)

It’s a tough time for carbonated soft drinks (CSD) sellers. Soft drinks sales have been in decline as soda consumption is at a 32-year low. Coke and Pepsi have both posted negative yearly sales changes for the last 15 years. And there is no salvation with the use of the word “Diet.” Health experts have for years rejected the perception that diet soda is a healthy alternative. The long-term outlook is that the diet market will continue to get smaller. Today, consumers are distancing themselves not just from sugar-sweetened drinks but also from artificial sweeteners. Besides emerging consumers’ health consciousness, Coca-Cola has also been dealing with the mounting threats of city soda taxes and warning labels. San Francisco, for instance, has passed a law to add a warning label to CSD products. The label reads: “WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay. This is a message from the City and County of San Francisco” (Steinmetz, 2015). When Philadelphia levied a tax on sugary drinks and soda in 2017 (USD 0.015 per ounce tax), sales of those beverages fell by approximately 50% in the first year (Sorto, 2019). In brief, the two top players in beverages, Coke and Pepsi, battle for a shrinking market as customers are turning away from sugary drinks and empty calories, and cities are imposing soda taxes.

The Costa Acquisition

Although Coca-Cola has been in business for 130-plus years and offers hundreds of products and brands to billions of customers around the globe, the company has never had a hot drink in its product mix. This changed overnight when the U.S. cola titan announced purchasing Costa Coffee on August 31, 2018, in a surprise acquisition. Coca-Cola paid a hefty GBP 3.9 billion or USD 5.1 billion to purchase the British coffee company; a price that analysts argue was on the high side. Why was Coke willing to overpay to have instant access to a global coffee platform? It was because soda sales were down, and coffee consumption was on the rise (Mulier, 2018). Coca-Cola’s profits had dropped from almost USD 9 billion in 2013 to USD 1.2 billion in 2018, so expanding into the more profitable and promising hot beverage industry had become more of a necessity than a luxury at that point (Video 2).

Watch Video 2: The Costa Deal, which gives James Hofmann’s 4 thoughts on the Costa deal.

While U.S. consumers might not be conversant with this UK-based coffeehouse, Costa has almost 4,000 stores, and is the third largest coffee seller in the industry (behind Starbucks and McDonald’s). Costa Coffee was founded in London in 1971 by two Italian immigrant brothers, Bruno and Sergio Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. In 1978, the Costa brothers opened their first coffee shop in Vauxhall Bridge Road, London. The concept was successful, and the two entrepreneurs kept adding stores across the UK. In 1995, the business was acquired by Whitbread, a British company that owns and operates hotels, for GBP 19 million when it had only 39 shops. By August 2018, Costa had 3,882 stores in 32 countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The acquisition instantly provided Coca-Cola a strong coffee platform across parts of Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. By acquiring Costa, Coca-Cola adopted a new growth strategy by adding retail footprints in these parts of the world. Costa leads in the British market with almost 2,500 stores (Starbucks has 335 stores). The company is also doing relatively well in China with almost 460 stores. Although Starbucks

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is dominating the Chinese market with 3,600 stores and has plans to add an additional 2,400 outlets by 2022, the Seattle-based company cannot undermine the ramifications of competing with the largest global beverage company in such an important market. The combination of Costa’s coffee capabilities and Coca- Cola’s marketing and distribution expertise cannot be overlooked by any player in the coffee industry. Costa Coffee is the number one coffee shop brand in the UK, and has been named the nation’s favorite coffeehouse for the past nine years. Costa’s acquisition by Coca-Cola is also arguably a direct challenge to the dominance of Starbucks in the United States, even though the British coffee chain does not have a single store in the United States. It is noteworthy that the deal includes 8,000-plus fresh espresso-based vending machines, called Costa Express, which can be found in supermarkets, movie theaters, and sports venues (mostly in Europe).

The deal closed in January 2019, when European Union regulators and the Chinese government approved the acquisition. Whitbread stated it will use proceeds from the sale of the coffee business to plug a £350 m pension black hole, pay off debt, return cash to shareholders, and expand its other big brand, Premier Inn hotels. Coca-Cola did not waste any time and announced it is launching a full line of ready-to-drink (RTD) Costa products in the coming months. The global RTD tea and coffee market size is expected to reach USD 135 billion by 2024, rising at a market growth of 8.4% (Arthur, 2019). Costa cold coffee and tea cans and bottles will be available wherever Coke is sold, such as at supermarkets, discount stores, vending machines, restaurants, airports, and sporting events. Although the possibilities are endless for Coca-Cola and Costa, only time will tell if Costa is a good fit. Many stakeholders are anxious to see how the acquisition turns out.

What Else is Brewing?

Coca-Cola’s move into coffee is part of a rising trend from CSD manufacturers who are trying to find ways to thrive as consumers move away from sugary and unhealthy drinks. The situation gets worse as states and cities are contemplating imposing soda and sugar taxes. Such a move instantly places Coca-Cola in direct competition with prominent and well-established coffee sellers like Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and McDonald’s in a global market that is growing at a wild pace, in contrast with that of its conventional business. Coke’s surprise move is not that strange as many beverage companies have been undertaking acquisitions recently to join markets that seem to have better prospects. The bottom line is that the global beverage industry is diversifying into hot and cold tea and coffee, as health-conscious consumers turn away from sugary drinks to enjoy custom-made flavored waters and barista-quality coffee at home or on the go. A good example is the 2018 merger of Dr. Pepper Snapple and Keurig Green Mountain (McGrath, 2018). Also, Nestle and Starbucks have reached a USD 7.2 billion global coffee alliance, giving Nestle the ability to sell and distribute Starbucks products outside its stores worldwide. On a different front, JAB, the Luxembourg-based holding company that owns brands like Krispy Kreme and Peet’s Coffee, bought UK sandwich and coffee chain, Pret A Manger in May 2018.

Coke’s historic chief rival, Pepsi, has announced that it is purchasing the Israeli do-it-yourself carbonation company, SodaStream. The company manufactures a small appliance that carbonates water by adding carbon dioxide from a pressurized cylinder to create drinkable soda water. SodaStream has taken advantage of the growing market for seltzer beverages and has managed to grow its customer base from 4.5 million in 2012 to 12.5 million customers in 2018. Seltzers do not have sugar and are calorie-free, thereby giving consumers drinks that are healthier than traditional soda drinks. Additionally, do-it-yourself carbonated drinks can be tailored to individual tastes with different fruits and flavors added to the water. This product appeals to consumers who are considering healthier, more environmentally friendly styles of cold beverages by eliminating plastic bottles and packaging.

Coca-Cola is also tinkering with two exotic product lines, liquor and marijuana. The company is launching a new product line meant to be mixed with whisky, rum, and/or bourbon (Ritschel, 2019). And in a more unorthodox business move for Coke, the company is investigating the cannabis business. Making drinks infused with cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive chemical found in marijuana plants, is on the beverage company’s radar (Hale, 2018). Venturing into that market is not farfetched as more states continue to legalize marijuana.

While the business of fizzy soft drinks continues to struggle, Coke is meeting the challenge head on by

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exploring opportunities in coffee, liquor, and pot! The beverage war continues. What will happen next?

Discussion Questions

• 1. Why did Coca-Cola buy Costa? And why now?

• 2. Discuss the Ansoff Matrix growth strategies: market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification. Which strategy is Coca-Cola using for Costa Coffee?

• 3. Costa has zero footprint in the United States. Do you think this will change?

• 4. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been engaged in something known as the Cola Wars for over 100 years. Do you foresee a similar battle—“Coffee Wars”—brewing between Coca-Cola and Starbucks?

• 5. Pepsi is known for mirroring Coca-Cola’s ventures globally. How do you think Pepsi will respond to the Costa acquisition?

• 6. Do you think Coca-Cola should rebrand Costa Coffee as Coke Coffee or something along those lines?

Notes

1. The word coffee comes from Kaffa, a region in Ethiopia where coffee beans may have been discovered.

2. Shultz is considering entering the U.S. 2020 presidential race as an independent.

3. Italian for “the newspaper”.

4. James Hofmann is a British coffee enthusiast and author of The World Atlas of Coffee: From Beans to Brewing -- Coffees Explored, Explained and Enjoyed.

References Arthur, R. (2019, April 24). Coca-Cola gears up for RTD Costa coffee product launch. Retrieved from https://www.beveragedaily.com/Article/2019/04/24/Coca-Cola-gears-up-for-RTD-Costa-coffee-product- launch? Beverage Digest (2019, March 1). Full-Year 2018 U.S. CSD Results at Retail. Buzby, Jean and Haley, Stephen (2007, June 1). Coffee Consumption Over the Last Century. Retrieved from https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2007/june/coffee-consumption-over-the-last-century/ Diamond, M. (2017, September 6). McDonald’s, the Fast-Food Icon, Takes Aim at Specialty Coffee. Retrieved from http://www.app.com/story/money/business/consumer/2017/09/06/mcdonalds-coffee-cappuccino- mccafe/636793001/ Hale, K. (2018, September 27). Coca-Cola Dipping Into the Cannabis Infused Drink Market. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2018/09/27/coca-cola-dipping-into-the-cannabis-infused-drink- market/#60a71f5d5e0e McGrath, M. (2018, January 29). Coffee Meets Soda: Keurig And Dr Pepper Snapple Merge To Create Beverage Behemoth. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2018/01/29/coffee-meets- soda-keurig-and-dr-pepper-snapple-merge-to-create-beverage-behemoth/#13187af43531 Mulier, T. (2018, August 31). Coke Makes $5.1 Billion Bet on Coffee Market With Costa Deal. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-31/coca-cola-to-buy-u-k-s-costa-coffee-chain- for-5-1-billion National Coffee Association (2017, March 25). Daily Coffee Consumption Up Sharply. Retrieved from http://www.ncausa.org/Portals/56/PDFs/Communication/NCA_NCDT2017.pdf?ver=2017-03-29-115235-727 Olshan, J. (2013, February 20). America’s Coffee Cup Is Half Full. Retrieved from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-coffee-cup-is-half-full-2013-02-20 Perez, Marvin (2013, March 22). Coffee Consumption Increase in U.S., Association Survey Shows. Retrieved

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from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-22/coffee-consumption-increases-in-u-s-association-survey- shows.html Ritschel, C. (2019, May 2). Coca-Cola is Launching a Version for Mixing with Liquor. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/coca-cola-signature-mixers-alcohol-liquor-spirits- dark-rum-vodka-a8896876.html Smith, O. (2017, October 1). Mapped: The countries that drink the most coffee. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/countries-that-drink-the-most-coffee/ Sorto, G. (2019, May 15). Sugary drink sales plummeted in Philadelphia after soda tax. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/health/philadelphia-soda-tax-sales-decrease/index.html Steinmetz, K. (2015, June 10). San Francisco Approves Warning Label for Sugary Drink Ads. Retrieved from http://time.com/3915485/san-francisco-soda-warning-label/ http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529724554

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