Originally made to simply supply local caterers and coffee shops with slow-roasted coffee blends the brothers opened their own coffee franchise in 1978. By 1995, Whitbread owned Costa Coffee, and have owned it ever since.
In 2009, a poll revealed that seven out of10 coffee drinkers preferred Costa to other leading high street brands. The same year saw them open their 1,000th UK store, and Costa was well on its way to becoming the UK’s biggest coffee shop.
Fast-forward to April 2013, and Whitbread announced that it has created 3,000 jobs in the UK last year and plans to create 12,000 in the next five years, as well as doubling Costa’s system sales to around £2 billion. Only this week Whitbread’s flagship coffee brand posted annual profits of £90 million, an increase of 29%.
Following on from this success, Costa is revamping its summer drinks menu featuring a wide range of cold and iced drinks, called ‘Costa Ice’. The previous range known as Ice Cold Costa confused customers and so the brand is keen to highlight the difference with its new-look makeover.
Customers will be able to choose from two different types of cold drink: ‘Over Ice’, which are iced coffees to be consumed quickly, and ‘Blended Ice’, featuring a new product 'The Coffee Cooler' and the already popular fruit smoothy drinks, intended to be drank over time and on the go.
This range is available to purchase all year around, although sales tend to peak over hot days - not a regular occurrence in the UK.
Costa says its cold drinks sales also increase around the Christmas season because the drinks have a festive winter flavour to them.
Costa has thought about its customers’ wellbeing in this new franchise. It has halved the sugar levels, and doubled their vanilla to keeping that same taste as they always have, highlighting how they keep both their customers health and the Costa experience at heart. Customers are even able to decide on what type of milk they’d like, whether it be skimmed, semi-skimmed or lactose-free.
But of course the coffee shops are only two thirds of the business; Costa Coffee also has what they call Costa Enterprises - the products and recipes supplied to places like schools, hospitals and cinemas. Part of this is Costa’s ‘Proud to Serve’ range, where they supply pubs, hotels, restaurants and bars.
Proud to Serve used to feature a narrower range of Costa’s cold drinks and of 4,000 distribution points, only 500 sold the cold drinks. But Costa Coffee is trying to change that number aiming to place both the Over Ice and Blended Ice on their third party customers’ menus.
The training for the Costa Ice range of drinks takes surprisingly little time. All they need is a training DVD and recipe guides, and they’re ready to make these new drinks in a matter of a few short hours.
Because Costa’s products should adhere to a certain standard, it should come to no surprise that even the ingredients and equipment used are specifically required. One example, is that Costa only uses one type of blender in all its stores across the world; The Tempest Blender by Hamilton. Even the ice is specified at Costa, at Costa the requirements for Costa’s “half cube” are 22 x 11 x 22 ml, which they say will ensure a smooth blend.
Simon Parton, senior beverage manager for Costa UK, explained more about the range: “Research amongst consumers identified a lack of understanding that the previously branded Ice Cold Costa products belonged to the Costa brand – with many also confused by the different options available.
"The new branding provides a holistic identity across the range – providing a clear proposition for consumers. With the Coffee Cooler already performing well in retail – we’re anticipating great results for Proud to Serve from this range over what we hope to be a long hot summer.”