Starbucks Launches Instant Coffee
September 28, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
Starbucks has been talking about tapping the instant coffee market for a while now. On Monday, all of their locations in the United States had Starbucks VIA Ready Brew — the name of Starbucks’ instant coffee.
Said Howard Schultz, the CEO and President of Starbucks: “We believe Starbucks VIA™ will change the way people drink coffee and where they enjoy it. It took 20 years for us to create a coffee that delivers Starbucks® coffee quality in an instant, and we’re excited to make that available throughout the U.S. and Canada.”
To convince customers to give Starbucks VIA Ready Brew a try, Starbucks will hold a taste challenge for four days starting on October 2nd. Customers will be given two versions of coffee and will challenged to pick the instant coffee from the fresh-brewed coffee.
“We’re so confident that you won’t be able to tell the difference between Starbucks VIA™ and our brewed coffee,” proclaimed Schultz, “we’re inviting customers into our stores to see if they can tell the difference.”
Starbucks VIA Ready Brew taste participants will receive a coupon for their next visit in addition to $1 off the purchase of Starbucks instant coffee.
Starbucks Instant Coffee (Image: Press Release)
Tried Via and it isn’t half bad. I love the regular Starbucks and will stick with it but I love the company giving the other biggies in the instant coffee business some competition. Their stuff is really bad. Via fits in perfectly for those mornings when you have to get out of the hotel room and get on with the day before you can get a decent cup of coffee.
RonD