Monthly Archives: December 2009

The bidding has ended for Diedrich Coffee a U.S. coffee roaster. Peet’s Coffee & Tea who had agreed to purchase Diedrich on November 2nd for $26 a share in cash and stock turns out to be the loser in a bidding war that began November 23rd, at which time Diedrich announced it had received a superior offer from Green Mountain Coffee of $30 per share in cash. Peets responded by increasing it’s bid to $32.50 per share in cash and stock, which then was later countered by Green Mountain increasing it’s bid to $35 per share in cash. On Monday Peets announced it would not increase it’s offer and lowered it’s bid back to the original offer of $26 per share.

The purchase of Diedrich by Peets would have allowed them into the fast growing Keurig single cup coffee market, as Diedrich is already a licensed k-cup roaster.

Green Mountain Coffee is the owner of the popular Keurig single cup coffee brewing system and has recently purchased other k-cup licensees. They now control a large percentage of the k-cup market.

The Keurig Coffee System, which first became popular in the office environment is now a big hit in the home market with several models of brewers available and well over 100 coffee and tea k-cups.

The top selling food commodity in Korea has been rice for hundreds—even thousands—of years. Last year, the country’s most common coffee drink, a 3-in-1 mix of instant coffee, sweetener and powdered creamer, rose to the^rd most popular product sold. This year the sweet brew has made history and taken the number one ranking for sales in Korea’s most popular chain of food markets.

Shinsegae E-mart, the nation’s largest food-seller reported that this spike from 3^rd place to 1^st is accompanied by less demand for rice and more demand for noodles. The trend is consumers who are looking for solace in inexpensive, quick, sweet treats such as sweet coffee.

We can’t say we don’t understand—coffee is our favorite food product, too!