Brand Catalyst’s Blog

How ironic that Starbucks, the brand that changed the world’s coffee habits, has made the move into instant coffee. The launch of its Via instant coffee brand sees Starbucks desperately targetting in-home consumption as the sales of its foaming lattes begin to dry up.

Over the last ten years or so Nestle and the other great instant coffee brand owners have been desperately trying to convince us that instant coffee is more than a poor cousin to those glamorous inheritors of the epitome coffee mantle: Starbucks/Costa/Caffe Nero/et al. While the instant coffee market bears the same ingredient name as the coffee bar market, any similarities stop there. Instant coffee is DIY, involving a jar, kettle and carton of milk; coffee bar coffee is gleaming Italian machinery, comfy sofas and indulgent temptation. 

One has alot of sympathy for Starbucks trying to tap into a $17bn instant coffee market as its high street sales decline and it might even be successful. But as we get used to that scuffed Starbucks pack sitting in the kitchen cupboard, will a visit to its once superior sister on the high street be quite so alluring?