McCafe is heading to retail

One of the biggest companies vying over the lucrative coffee market is about to enter the similarly ultra-competitive retail sector, it has been announced.

But the question is, would you willingly buy McCafe coffee from your local supermarket or grocery store?

McDonald’s, the American fast-food retailer, and Kraft Food has teamed up to bring the well-known, if not much loved, McCafe brand to retail in the United States starting early 2015, the companies said in a joint statement earlier this week.

Customers will have the ability to choose between 12-ounce bags of ground Premium Roast, Breakfast Blend, French Roast, Colombian, Premium Roast Decaf, and French Vanilla and Hazelnut coffees when they hit shelves next year.

There’s also expected to be a number of different varieties tailored to the capsule market too – so if you own a Keurig brewer you’re in luck, potentially.

“We think this will increase the awareness of the McCafe brand beyond its current in-restaurant strength,” said Greg Watson, a McDonald’s senior vice-president of Menu Innovation.  

It is hoped that the move into retail will, hopefully, “encourage more people to try it.”

The fast-food chain has been increasing its emphasis on coffee in recent years and launched McCafe in 2009 in order to try and gain some traction in the mad early morning rush.

Their expansion has been rapid: coffee now accounts for 6% of all of McDonald’s’ business in the State and sales grew 70% in the four year period after McCafe’s debut.

This deal “represents [the beginning of] a whole new era in the world of at-home premium coffee,” according to Kraft’s vice-president for coffee, Nina Barton.

“By tapping into the loyal McCafe fan base already built by McDonald’s and leveraging our deep coffee category expertise here at Kraft, we have the ability to reach a larger audience than ever before, really giving this brand room to thrive,” she said in a statement to the press.

There’s an interesting narrative too that underlies this agreement. Kraft were, once, responsible for supply Starbucks’ coffee to American retailers. However that arrangement ended in 2011 after the coffee chain accused Kraft of severe mismanagement and terminated the contract. A bitter lawsuit followed and an arbitrator awarded Kraft’s parent company Mondelez $2.8bn in damages.