Soon to lose the top spot in China, there appears to be trouble abrewing for Starbucks at home as well. Forbes reports that US-based Peetโs Coffee is merging with European counterpart and fellow JAB Holdings offering Jacobs Douwe Egberts. The combined company, JDE Peet, have combined sales of โฌ7 billion ($7.81B USD) with โa presence in 140 countries,โ still well short of the $29.5 billion Starbucks has earned through Q3 2019.
While most of America is familiar with the name Peetโs, JDE is lesser known Stateside. Per Forbes, the โEuropean packaged-coffee giant housing labels including Jacobs Coffee, Douwe Egberts, Senseo, and Tassimo.โ Along with growing the Peetโs presence, which is currently limited to only eight states, the merger allows the newly-minted company to better compete with packaged-coffee market leader Nestlรฉ, who reported $19 billion in global earnings this year.
Per the Financial Times, growth plans for JDE Peet may include going public at some time in the 2020, where the company looks to bring in โฌ3 billion. With the IPO, JDE Peet will become the largest publicly traded coffee company in the world.
Currently, Peetโs ranks 12th in overall market share behind first place Starbucks with 46% and Coca-Cola-owned Costa Coffee and McDonaldโs McCafe sharing the second spot with 3.1% each. In America, Peet’s is bested by only Starbucks in terms of specialty coffee and tea shop market share, though their 1.2% pales in comparison to Starbucks’ staggering 67%. But with the merger, JDE Peet positions themselves to grow the brand both in America and abroad and put up a much more robust fight against their Big Green Rival.
Zac Cadwaladerย is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.
Top image from The Man Who Taught The World To Drink Coffee by Karina Hof
