"This is not about any disappointment with Green Mountain; it's about controlling our own destiny," Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said today after announcing the chain will start selling its own single-cup coffee brewers in the fall. "They can and they will co-exist." Still, it is an interesting move, because the company has been selling K-cup packs for Green Mountain Coffee's Keurig machines since last November.
Starbucks has been pushing further and further into the instant coffee business the past three years, first with their Via instant coffee and then with their K-cups. So the announcement of the forthcoming Verismo line of machines shouldn't be too much of a surprise. And they want us all to be clear: these aren't going to be your average coffee machines, oh no. Instead Starbucks is promising a machine that will let users make lattes at home (or the office) with "convenient, no-mess espresso and milk pods." We don't know about you, but nothing gets us salivating like the words "milk pods."
Meanwhile, the company has yet to announce pricing for the new toy. But we'll go out on a limb and say they'll be as singularly expensive and bad for the environment as your average single-serve coffee.
