Coffee lovers in the US are buzzing -- and this time not
just because of their caffeine fix. A battle is looming
to persuade them to adopt a new way to brew coffee at
home, and in so doing, to retire the drip coffee makers
that are a fixture in millions of kitchens.
The ''next big thing'' is a machine that uses pre-packed
single servings to make a ''cafe quality'' coffee for
the home. The largest sellers of coffee drunk at home
-- Procter & Gamble, Kraft and Sara Lee -- hope to
capitalise on the growing taste for gourmet coffee. Single-serve
coffee makers are not new. They are simply migrating from
the office to the home.
Coffee consumption in the US has been declining, but in
recent years has started to perk up. According to the
National Coffee Association, the number of consumers who
say they drink coffee regularly or occasionally has risen
this month to 167.1m -- or 80 per cent of Americans --
from 166.6m in March 2003 and 161.2m the year before.
Consumption of gourmet coffee, however, shows a stronger
growth, rising from 9 per cent of the total US population
in 1999 to 12 percent in 2003 and 16 per cent this month.
But the NPD Group, a market research company, says that
in 2003 the average American drank just 112.4 cups of
coffee at home, down from 125.4 in 1999.
Last September, two new single-cup coffee makers appeared
on the US market. Salton launched One:One under the Melitta
brand, while Keurig, which has been in the US coffee market
since 1998, launched its B100 model, a smaller home version
of its single-cup coffee system. Around the time of the
Melitta and Keurig launches, Flavia halved the price of
its SB100 small brewer.
The latest single-serve brewer to hit the US is from Sara
Lee, owner of Douwe Egberts coffee and Philips, the Dutch
electronics group. The Senseo system first appeared in
Europe in 2001. Since then, more than 5m of the appliances
have been sold, along with 3bn coffee pods.
P&G is not far behind Sara Lee with its Home Cafe
system, which produces, it says, a ''coffee house'' standard
drink at home. It has teamed up with four small-appliance
makers -- Miami Lakes-based Applica's Black & Decker,
Krups, Sunbeam's Mr. Coffee brand and Hamilton Beach.
The coffee makers will use ground beans from P&G's
Folger's and Millstone brands in specially designed pods.
The Home Cafe will be available in the US under the Black
& Decker brand starting
