Costa Franchise News

November 09, 2010 // Franchising.com // Costa Coffee has won the prestigious "Best Branded Coffee Shop Chain in the UK and Ireland" by Allegra Strategies at the European Coffee Shop Awards.

Jeffrey Young, Managing Director and founder of Allegra Strategies, commented , "Costa thoroughly deserve this accolade, following an incredible 35 quarters of like for like growth. They have a clear focus on serving great coffee, backed up by strong marketing campaigns"

John Derkach, Managing Director of Costa, added, "this award is testament to the great people we have in every one of our stores. They strive to make great coffee, and offer fantastic service to all of our customers. It is great that our baristas have received this public recognition from 300 of the most influential leaders in the industry...

Not all coffees are created equal October 08, 2010 // Franchising.com // Last night Costa Coffee launched its first ever TV advert in an innovative and humorous execution that breaks with the conventions of a long line of traditional coffee advertising.

The campaign follows the success of Costa's first national marketing campaign in 2009 – the controversial '7 out of 10 coffee lovers prefer Costa' taste test which, following several months of complaints from Starbucks, culminated in a landmark ASA ruling in Costa's favour in July this year. The new campaign will feature the strap line 'For Coffee Lovers' a celebration of this conclusion.

The campaign titled 'Monkeys and Typewriters', focuses on the well-known theorem that if you give a room full of monkeys typewriters, they will eventually produce the entire works of Shakespeare...

January 27, 2010 // Franchising.com // London - Poet Christopher Reid has won the 2009 Costa Book of the Year award for his collection, A Scattering, a tribute to his wife Lucinda Gane following her death in 2005. The announcement was made this evening (Tuesday 26th January) at an awards ceremony held at Quaglino's in central London.

The Costa Book Awards recognise the most enjoyable books of the last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. Originally established by Whitbread PLC in 1971, Costa announced its takeover of the sponsorship of the UK's prestigious and popular book prize in 2006.

Reid beat odds-on favourite Colm Tóibίn for Brooklyn, debut biographer Graham Farmelo for The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius, first-time novelist Raphael Selbourne for Beauty and children's author Patrick Ness for The Ask and the Answer, to win the overall prize and a cheque for £30,000 at the awards ceremony...

July 30, 2009 // Franchising.com // England have 'bean' the best team on the pitch so far in this summer's quest for the Ashes, and today (28 July) in Birmingham former England great Phil Tufnell experienced what a series win might taste like.

Recognising the legendary 'roasting' skills of fans and players alike during the passionate Ashes contest, Costa Coffee has created the world's first life-size Ashes urn made entirely from coffee beans, dubbed the 'Roasted Replica.'

Costa Coffee, experts in the art of hand-made coffee, and fresh from a win of its own in a head-to-head taste test with rivals Starbucks, commissioned local artist Richard Glover to re-create the urn using only coffee beans.

The fragile process took the equivalent of a Test match to complete (five full days) and consists of hundreds of carefully selected roasted Costa Coffee beans of all shapes and sizes...

Costa woos Starbucks customers March 10, 2009 // Franchising.com // Contrary to popular belief, all coffee is not the same, according to the leading independent research company specialising in taste comparison tests.

The cappuccino handcrafted by Costa's highly skilled baristas beats that of Starbucks and Nero by an unprecedented margin.

A staggering 7 out of 10 - more than two thirds - of people who defined themselves as "coffee lovers" preferred Costa cappuccino to that of its leading competitors in comprehensive blind taste tests across a number of British cities

The margin of preference over Costa's competitors astounded Sean Chamberlain, MD of Tangible Branding, who has 10 years of experience running scientific taste test comparisons...

December 05, 2008 // Franchising.com // Costa Coffee, the UK's largest and fastest growing coffee shop chain has won the 'cake' category award for its Raspberry & Almond Bake. The prestigious Quality Food Awards took place on Thursday 27 November, the same day that Costa topped an ethical survey for doing the most to tackle social and environmental issues as featured in The Times! Judges described the product as an "excellent, moist cake with a great raspberry hit." Costa was short listed against ASDA Extra Special Chocolate Cake and an ASDA Extra Special Victoria Sponge.

The Q Awards are renowned for recognising great tasting food and drink products with the finest taste, flavours, textures and aromas. Other well-known high street brands that participated within different categories included M&S, Waitrose, Tesco, and Pret...

December 02, 2008 // Franchising.com // Costa, the UK's largest and fastest growing coffee shop chain, has topped a survey which asked over 1000 'concerned consumers' which brand they thought did the most to tackle social and environmental issues. Costa was featured number one above Subway, Wild Bean Café, Starbucks, Pret a Manger, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Burger King and KFC.

Costa Top 5 Corporate Social Responsibility projects: Costa Coffee was the first UK coffee shop chain to commit to sourcing beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms back in April 2008. Costa set up a registered charity (no.327489) in 2006 called 'The Costa Foundation' to give something back to the communities within the countries from which Costa sources its coffee beans...

Coffee shops voted number one place for UK's gossip corner November 12, 2008 // Franchising.com // Coffee shops have officially overtaken pubs as the UK's favourite social hang outs, according to new research commissioned by Costa Coffee.

A staggering three quarters of the population (72%) prefer coffee shops to pubs for catch ups and chin wags. According to the research, 85% of Brits chose coffee shops as their top spot for a juicy gossip session with friends. Half (47%) believe coffee shops are now the perfect place for a first date, and one in four of us (24%) has found the cosy coffee shop setting with its inviting leather sofas has made them more inclined to flirt with a stranger or even staff. A quarter (24%) even believe that coffee shops are the prime location for a rendezvous with a secret lover...

October 03, 2008 // Franchising.com // Costa cup chalk drawing in Covent Garden 02 October 2008From 2 October 2008, every cup of coffee sold by Costa, the UK's largest and fastest growing coffee shop chain, will be made up of beans sourced from Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM farms across all 785 of its UK stores.*

The move means that from today, Costa will buy almost 1,500 tonnes of green beans, already achieving 30% of its annual requirements from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. Costa and the Rainforest Alliance are discussing how to steadily increase this percentage as more farms are certified.

Rainforest Alliance works with farmers to ensure farms are not only run in an environmentally sustainable manner, but also improve conditions for workers and their families...

August 06, 2008 // Franchising.com // Costa Coffee, the UK's largest and fastest-growing coffee shop brand, announces today the opening of its first store in Beijing, days ahead of start of the 2008 Olympic games.

The Costa store, located in the Shang Di Shopping Mall will be the first opened under a joint venture between Whitbread PLC and the Beijing Hualian Group. The JV intends to open 300 Costa coffee shops in Beijing and surrounding provinces in North East China, over the next few years.

Shang Di Mall is based in the Haidian District of Beijing. It is the first major shopping mall opening in this area and is in the middle of Beijing's IT business district. Costa is located in the centre of the 60,000 sq Mall which serves upwards of 20,000 people a day from both residential and business areas...

June 23, 2008 // Franchising.com // Profits raised from Costa Coffee's inaugural National Foundation Day, held over the weekend in its 700 UK stores, are being donated to the Costa Foundation today. The registered charity was set up by the UK's largest and fastest growing coffee shop chain in 2006 to help to build schools and improve the lives of coffee growing communities around the world.

Costa customers helped to raise £150,000 on Saturday 14 June which will now help build three new schools in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Uganda, making a tangible difference to coffee farmers and their communities.

Costa Coffee Marketing Director and Costa Foundation Trustee, David Hutchinson says,

"We wanted to give something back to the communities where we source our coffee and local farmers have specifically told us that the best way Costa can help is by focusing on education through building schools for their children...

June 12, 2008 // Franchising.com // Recent YouGov research commissioned by Costa Coffee, the UK's largest and fastest growing coffee chain, has revealed that 80 per cent of people in the UK now want the option of purchasing ethical coffee from their regular high street outlets. And surprisingly, Brits are also willing to pay an average of 14p more per cup to ensure their coffee is ethical. But despite consumers' willingness to pay more, Costa will not be charging any extra for an ethical cup of coffee.

This Saturday 14 June, Costa will host its inaugural Foundation Day, an exciting initiative whereby all profits generated throughout its 700 UK stores on that day will be donated directly to the Costa Foundation to invest back into coffee growing communities...

April 09, 2008 // Franchising.com // Costa Coffee, the UK's largest and fastest growing coffee shop, plans to convert its entire coffee supply to sustainably grown beans sourced from Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM farms by 2010.

As a first step, from September 2008 at least 30% of Costa's unique Mocha Italia blend, which forms the base of its coffee drinks, will come from Rainforest Alliance Certified sources, equal to about 1000 tonnes of green coffee over the course of a year.

Only farms that meet specific standards balancing all aspects of production, including protecting the environment, the rights and welfare of workers and the interest of coffee-growing communities are awarded certification. The standards were developed by the Rainforest Alliance, an independent, international environment organisation, and other conservation groups that comprise the Sustainable Agriculture Network...

March 26, 2008 // Franchising.com // Costa and OJSC Rosinter Restaurants Holding "Rosinter" today open Costa's 1,000th store in Moscow's Pushkin Square. The opening of this store marks the arrival of Costa Coffee in Russia.

Costa is the UK's largest and fastest growing coffee shop chain and plans to open its 700th milestone UK store next month. It now operates over 300 stores overseas in 22 countries (Europe, the Middle East, China and India).

Rosinter is the leading casual dining restaurant chain in Russia and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), operating 216 restaurants in 8 countries and 24 cities.

The new joint venture, formed in December 2007, plans to open 200 Costa stores in Russia over the next 5 years, focusing on Moscow and St Petersburg in its first year, then expanding to other Russian regions thereafter...

New Joint Venture with Rosinter Restaurants Holding

MOSCOW--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Whitbread and OJSC Rosinter Restaurants Holding "Rosinter" (RTS:ROST) have today announced they will launch the Costa Coffee shop chain in Russia via a Joint Venture.

Rosinter is the leading casual dining restaurant chain in Russia and CIS, operating 216 restaurants in 8 countries and 24 cities.

The new agreement between Whitbread and Rosinter will see over 200 Costa stores opening in the next five years, concentrating on Moscow and Saint Petersburg in its first year, and then expanding to other Russian regions thereafter. The partners also intend to open Costa stores in Ukraine and Belarus at a later date.

The first Costa flagship store will open in Pushkin Square in Moscow in early 2008...