Starbucks Corp. said its Via instant coffee product will be available in Colorado and other U.S. markets on Wednesday. And to overcome the negative image of instant coffee, the Seattle coffee giant said it will stage taste competitions between Via and its fresh-brewed coffee next week. Starbucks announced the national expansion last month, after the product was initially introduced in Seattle and in Illinois.
Starbucks said its Via Ready Brew product is made by adding water to a single-serve packet. The packets will be sold in books of three for $2.95 or boxes of 12 for $9.95. Worldwide, there is a $17 billion market for instant coffee, according to Starbucks.
“We’re so confident that you won’t be able to tell the difference between Starbucks Via and our brewed coffee, we’re inviting customers into our stores to see if they can tell the difference,” said Howard Schultz, chairman, president and CEO, in a statement. Here’s what the Wall Street Journal thinks about Starbucks Via:
This week Starbucks gave the full nationwide rollout to its new line of instant coffee. What can we make of this remarkable development? Maybe it is just a sign of what counts as a luxury good in straitened times. It’s worth noting that the last time instant coffee made any sort of splash was when Nescafé came to market in 1938—as though we really needed yet another indication that the economy is languishing in dreary pseudo-depression. Starbucks insists it is taking on Taster’s Choice with its new “Via” instant because it finally hit on a technological breakthrough that transformed the product. Perhaps. But maybe after decades of building its business on the principle that its customers should care deeply about coffee and all its rituals, Starbucks has decided consumers should care about convenience, speed and ease of preparation. It expects we’ll go along. – from WSJ