Folgers Coffee purchase gave Smucker one profitable jolt

Three straight quarters of record sales and earnings -- including profits that have more than doubled three times -- have a way of silencing your detractors.

"The proof in the pudding is what the market thinks of what you've done, and their stocks have gone up more than the markets have gone up," said Fariborz Ghadar, professor of global management, policies and planning, and founding director of the Center for Global Business Studies at Penn State University. "These guys have done better than the market -- in a very challenging environment."

Cleveland.com

From Starbucks, Coffee From the Future

The myStarbucks application has a slew of features that make it easier to remember your friend’s favorite drinks and to locate nearby Starbucks stores. More interesting is a test of a Starbucks card, which will allow people in select West Coast stores to pay for coffee using a bar code on a phone’s screen.

New York Times

Free Coffee from Seattle's Best via Border

Grab a free 12 oz Seattle's Best Coffee at Borders

Starbucks to sell instant coffee at Costco, Target

In hopes of taking its newest product mainstream, Starbucks Corp. this week expanded its instant coffee trial to include sales in certain Costco, Target and Barnes & Noble stores.

Starbucks unveiled its VIA instant coffee in February and started selling it in Chicago and Seattle cafes in March.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Taking It To the Streets - McDonald's version, not Michael McDonald

Have you tried a beverage at your local McCafe yet? I haven't, but now I kind of want a McGriddle and a McCafe Beverage (btw do they come in real sizes, or is it made up sizes like Venti?)

Well, while the McCafe's are slowly popping up it seems franchisees don't feel like sitting on their hands, waiting for their $100,000+ investment to provide return, so instead of waiting for corporate McDonalds to roll out national advertising, many are taking it to the streets.

"In Houston, McCafe trucks idle in parking lots, giving drinks away. In Dallas, they gave away samples at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. In Detroit, there have been "First Friday Extravaganzas" at the MGM Grand Casino, giving drinks away to 300 or more consumers at a time. In New Orleans, Moroch partnered with the NBA's New Orleans Hornets to create activities at halftime, with the goal of giving free McCafe coupons to everyone in attendance. To celebrate Teacher Appreciation Day in Philadelphia, McDonald's is offering a free small McCafe drink to each of the city's 100,000 school teachers."

The interesting thing is that I would assume the franchisees will in essence be paying twice - once for their own marketing efforts and then through their franchise fees.

Read more via AdAge

Taste-testing Starbucks instant

They tried it, so you don't have to:

Before you start accusing the iconic retailer of desperate measures, give Via a try. Here at Fortune, we have a machine that brews a fresh cup from Starbucks beans in less than a minute. We compared it to the Via and couldn’t tell which cup was the instant. Both had a rich aroma and flavor.

Fortune

Starbucks Poised to Launch 'Soluble' Coffee

Horror of horrors. An instant coffee from Starbucks? Either they have a serious technological advance on their hands or an equity-diluting idea. Time will tell ...

Starbucks will begin testing the soluble coffee -- a term that conjures up images of instant brands such as Folgers, Sanka and Brim -- by selling it in Starbucks cafes as early as next month. It's unclear as yet whether the company will also extend the product to supermarkets, where it already has a presence with ground Starbucks-branded coffee.

AdAge

"Starbucks offers coffee-breakfast combos, cites economy"

What's next . . Starbuck's giving me a toy with my coffee?

"Starbucks, better known for amusingly complicated premium coffee offerings, took a cue from fast-food chains and announced a plan Monday to sell pairings of coffee and breakfast for $3.95, citing the economic downturn."

CNN

Man Dining Tip #1

Obviously the book has been written when it comes to dining etiquette...the website has been written, too. But when it comes to being "proper," and I use that term loosely, men are generally thought of being left in the dust. Being comfortable and knowledgeable at the dinner table can be the difference between a good meal and an uncomfortable trip to the dentist. I thought I'd parlay a few tips (geared towards guys, but probably pretty safe for everyone to remember) to save a little face...no matter if you are on a first date or just trying to impress the office Big Wig. Friday night's Scottish dinner at the lovely Nicholson's Tavern and Pub brings us to Man Dining Tip #1:

When ordering an after-dinner coffee, keep it to either a standard cup of regular or decaf or a shot or two of espresso. When you feel adventurous and deviate from this advice, this happens:


Thanks to blog friend, Bert, for being a shining example to all of us...at least he didn't order the Cock-A-Leekie.

Coffee Linked to Lower Dementia Risk

After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less. People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia, the researchers said, but there were not enough people in this group to draw statistically significant conclusions.

New York Times

You're Putting What in Coffee?

While I'm not the biggest coffee drinker, I actually think this sound good. I may be crazy, but I could go for a salty, coffee beverage right about now.

Chinese people like to eat things Westerners consider unusual, things like pig-blood cake and chicken-butt kebab to name just a few of the popular snacks here. So the introduction of salty coffee shouldn't be such a shocker. What difference, after all, can a few sprinkles of salt have on your morning cup of joe? The chefs at Taiwan's top coffeehouse, 85C Bakery Cafe, pondered that question for six months before they started serving sea salt coffee, which became their best-selling drink following its December debut. (full Article via Time)

Dunkin' Takes Battle Against Starbucks to Grocery Stores

Dunkin' has been running a marketing campaign that goes after Starbucks stores on taste, boasting that it beat the java giant in an "independent taste test." Now, J.M. Smucker Co., which owns Dunkin's supermarket-distributed coffee brand, is mounting an online sampling program for the brew-at-home version, DunkinAtHome.com. The site offers samples of Dunkin's original blend, as well as Dunkin' Dark.

AdAge

Dunkin' Beat Starbucks

Folgers Markets a New Coffee to Cost-Cutting Home Brewers

Now Folgers, which is still the top-selling packaged coffee in the United States, is trying to lure customers with an approach to roasting that it calls “the biggest innovation since the launch of decaf.”

New York Times

Tully's sells brand, business

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters will acquire the Tully's brand and the company's wholesale and supply chain businesses. Tully's shareholders will keep the Seattle company's retail business, which includes company-owned, franchised and licensed retail cafes. Tully's also will hang onto its growing international business, which includes retail stores and a recently established wholesale segment.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Dunkin' to double U.S. stores in anti-Starbucks push

Dunkin' Donuts -- the East Coast coffee shop chain called by some the "anti-Starbucks", because of its core blue collar customer base, still plans to more than double its U.S. stores to 15,000 by 2020, as its bigger rival from Seattle retrenches.

Reuters

With A Plan Like Smucker's, Sales Have To Be Good

As for marketing once Folgers is in the fold, co-CEO Tim Smucker confirmed the company's intention to "continue to be the No. 1 spender" in its categories. He noted that existing brands are already being "marketed much closer together," and stressed the greatly expanded cross-marketing opportunities represented by Folgers.

Smucker intends to stick long-term with a core message that he summed up as: "The best way of starting your day is Folgers in your cup and Smucker's on your toast, and the best way of ending your day is Folgers in your cup and some Pillsbury."

Marketing Daily

Starbucks' Savior?

The Coffee Fix: Can the $11,000 Clover Machine Save Starbucks?

It's 10 am on a Thursday, and the line at Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco snakes out the door. Inside, an espresso machine hisses like an angry tomcat as customers order their cappuccinos. But the real action is taking place a few steps away, where a scruffy barista stands at a stainless steel contraption, introducing the coffee he's about to serve to his rapt audience. "The Honduran is sweet," he says, "with a refined acidity and an excellent finish." He lets one perfectly measured scoop of fresh grounds shimmy deep into the machine, then goes to work, twiddling knobs, pushing buttons, and whirling a whisk in a chamber at the top of the silver box.

Wired

Some Fake Coffee With Your Real News

Oooooooh, they’re calling out your name.

Two cups of McDonald’s iced coffee (BUY!) sit on the Fox 5 TV news desk, a punch-you-in-the-face product placement (BUY!) to chase down your morning news.

They’ve been on the Las Vegas station set for about two weeks, following the lead of a few TV stations across the country, and they’re still looking every bit as frosty and tantalizing (BUY!) as they were the first day you laid your eyes on them.

But wait, here’s the best part: They’re not real. . . .

via Las Vegas Sun

A Maize Maze for the Golden Arches

Adweek