Well, the consolidation itself is kind of interesting, I think; while retail food service brands have certainly gone through consolidations before, the restaurant and cafe industry hasn't been quite as subject to it. (Not to say that it doesn't happen, but the biggest operators tend to spin off and trade brands as often as they buy them, like Red Lobster being spun off from Darden, or A&W and Long John Silver's being spun off from Yum! Brands -- yes, that local fast food place that's a joint A&W and KFC is actually two separate companies now.)
Something that this piece hints at but doesn't underline well is just how big JAB Holding Company has quietly become in the last ~5 years: they now outright own or have controlling/majority interest in Bruegger's Bagels, Canada Dry, Caribou Coffee Company, Dr Pepper, Einstein's Bagels, Green Mountain Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Keurig, Krispy Kreme, Mighty Leaf Tea, Noah's Bagels, Panera Bread, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Snapple, and Stumptown Coffee. That is a big company. Nestlé's coffee brands aren't all that well known over here, despite the push to get people to pay attention to Nespresso.
Personally, I remain unconvinced that there's a huge untapped market for "better" home coffee and espresso brewers in the US; while this sounds like a setup for a "quality, convenience, and price, pick any two" joke, in practice, it seems like you can pick either quality or convenience, regardless of price. Keurig machines simply don't make very good coffee; a consumer who finds a Mr. Coffee too fiddly is not going to be swayed by a coffee nerd with an Aeropress; and given that Americans don't seem to love espresso drinks unless they're fiddly steamed milk and syrup based concoctions, even a Nespresso machine isn't going to help much with the convenience aspect. JAB's signing a deal with Illy, what led to this Economist article, doesn't seem like it's really going to move the needle much over here, at least; a Keurig capsule full of Illy coffee will still be a Keurig capsule, and Illy's capsule machine that's a competitor to the Nespresso isn't likely to do any better here than any of the other Nespresso also-rans.
(I am, for the record, a coffee nerd with an Aeropress. And a Technivorm, a few different single cup dripper gadgets, a Chemex, and, yes, a Nespresso.)
Something that this piece hints at but doesn't underline well is just how big JAB Holding Company has quietly become in the last ~5 years: they now outright own or have controlling/majority interest in Bruegger's Bagels, Canada Dry, Caribou Coffee Company, Dr Pepper, Einstein's Bagels, Green Mountain Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Keurig, Krispy Kreme, Mighty Leaf Tea, Noah's Bagels, Panera Bread, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Snapple, and Stumptown Coffee. That is a big company. Nestlé's coffee brands aren't all that well known over here, despite the push to get people to pay attention to Nespresso.
Personally, I remain unconvinced that there's a huge untapped market for "better" home coffee and espresso brewers in the US; while this sounds like a setup for a "quality, convenience, and price, pick any two" joke, in practice, it seems like you can pick either quality or convenience, regardless of price. Keurig machines simply don't make very good coffee; a consumer who finds a Mr. Coffee too fiddly is not going to be swayed by a coffee nerd with an Aeropress; and given that Americans don't seem to love espresso drinks unless they're fiddly steamed milk and syrup based concoctions, even a Nespresso machine isn't going to help much with the convenience aspect. JAB's signing a deal with Illy, what led to this Economist article, doesn't seem like it's really going to move the needle much over here, at least; a Keurig capsule full of Illy coffee will still be a Keurig capsule, and Illy's capsule machine that's a competitor to the Nespresso isn't likely to do any better here than any of the other Nespresso also-rans.
(I am, for the record, a coffee nerd with an Aeropress. And a Technivorm, a few different single cup dripper gadgets, a Chemex, and, yes, a Nespresso.)