Kraft Foods Brews Gevalia For Starbucks Rivalry
Kraft Foods Brews Gevalia For Starbucks Rivalry
Kraft Foods Brews Gevalia For Starbucks Rivalry
Kraft Foods Inc.'s Gevalia coffee will go head-to-head with its onetime partner Starbucks Corp. in supermarkets starting in August.
Kraft plans to sell Gevalia as its premium coffee brand at more than 20,000 retailers, marking the first time the nearly 160-year-old Swedish coffee brand, which has been primarily sold in the U.S. through online and mail orders for the past quarter-century, will be available at American stores.
Gevalia will replace Starbucks as Kraft's entrant in the premium-coffee category. Kraft had exclusively sold Starbucks products in the high-end coffee category until March 1, when their distribution pact was dissolved in what became a messy and public divorce in court. The two sides are still involved in arbitration over the breakup, and whether Starbucks may have to pay Kraft more than $1 billion for terminating the pact.
Now, much as the two consumer-products giants faced off in court over the breakup, Kraft and Starbucks are setting up to become fierce competitors in the estimated $4.1 billion U.S. market for packaged coffee.
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