The Secretive Company That Pours America's Coffee

Percentage change in sales since 2012

200

%

Ready

to drink

coffee

($4.1B)

150

100

Coffee

shops

($28.7)

50

U.S.

retail

coffee

sales

($15.4)

Coffee shop

Grab a late-morning coffee at JAB-owned chains:

Breakfast at home

Brew a cup of coffee from one of JAB's Keurig machines. K-cups contain coffee from JAB brands, and competitors such as:

Peet's

Caribou

Panera

Stumptown

Intelligentsia

Krispy Kreme

Starbucks

Dunkin’ Donuts

Grocery store

Recharge with a cold brew while shopping for JAB-owned products:

Nighttime

Order K-cups while sipping hot cocoa or tea. JAB also sells K-cups from:

Peet's bagged coffee

Stumptown

cold brews

Swiss Miss

Twinings tea

Lipton te

There is a common brand all over the world, in shopping centers, gas stations, and even our homes that taking over our daily lives. You might not know it because it is a secret company. One that is buying out other big companies and partnering with their competition. It is called JAB and it is a secretive European holding company that was making chemical for swimming pools just 50 years ago, but today, it isn’t cleaning swimming pools anymore. JAB is mashing together a fragmented industry to create a caffeine-fueled global powerhouse. 

JAB brands can be found just about anywhere. It distributes brands it doesn’t even own such as Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks for its Keurig coffee maker. It sells its own brands of bottled coffee and bags of beans. With its own bakeries and coffee shops, it competes directly with Americas biggest coffee chains. JAB is Green Mountain and Peet’s coffee beans, it is Keurig coffee pots, it is the coffee you buy at places like Panera and Krispy Kreme, and it is Lipton tea you drink with K-cups for the Keurig.

JAB is competing to become the biggest coffee company in the world. Recently, they made a deal to buy Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc., the third-largest soft-drink company in the U.S. This secretive, but powerful company got its name from a German businessman, Johann Adam Benckiser, who sold chemicals used for water treatment. But today, the company is controlled by three partners – one Dutch, one German and one French, and their mission is much different than before. Bart Becht, the chairman of JAB explained that the consumer wants choice both in terms of beverage and location. They are trying to go everywhere the consumer is or wants to be, instead of having the consumer find them.

Recently, sales of ready to drink coffee sold in cans or bottles have replaced the need to go get coffee from a coffee shop. Even convenient store coffees have become more popular, especially with young consumers, since it is much cheaper than specialty coffee sold at places like Starbucks. But, oddly enough, Starbucks is not their biggest competition, Nestle is. Nestle has dedicated itself to maintaining its leading position over JAB by having breakthrough innovations across various coffee formats. But it looks as though JAB may have the upper hand in the upcoming years. They are continuing to bring in revenue through many brands of coffee, and through its many partnerships with Swiss Miss, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s McCafe brand, Gevalia, Lipton, and Tazo and Tetley.

Coffee Crush

European holding company JAB has been on a coffee-buying spree in recent years, and hopes its latest Dr Pepper deal will help with distribution of bottled coffees

Enterprise value,

in billions

JAB acquisitions

2012

$1.0

Peet’s

0.3

Caribou Coffee

2013

9.8

D.E. Master Blenders

2014

5.0

Mondelez Coffee

0.5

Einstein Noah

2015

Keurig Green

Mountain

13.9

0.3

Espresso House

n.a.*

Stumptown, Intelligentsia,

Baresso Coffee

2016

1.3

Krispy Kreme

1.0

Super Group

2017

7.5

Panera

0.3

Old Town

n.a.*

Balzac, Au Bon Pain

2018

Dr Pepper

Snapple Group

26.0

JAB’s mission is directly related to doing what their customers want. They have a plan for their products and where they should be distributed. JAB is aware that in order to make the best profit, they have to continue to improve their products and make access to ready-to-drink coffee more readily available. JAB is eliminating their competitors and actually collaborating with them to create a stronger company. JAB did a S.W.O.T. analysis and realized their strength would come by combining multiple coffee brands and multiple coffee types to satisfy their target market.

I would say that JAB has been pretty successful, and maybe it will come out of secret and become a more recognizable brand. They are reaching new customers every single day, and even sell it at a cheaper price than specialty coffees. The people who run JAB are brilliant through the planning of their products and the places they go. They are not just competing in a single country, but they are a European holding company that is competing with popular domestic brands here in the United States.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secretive-company-that-pours-americas-coffee-1520440633?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3



Kelsie Walker