Super premium coffee brands not hurt by crisis

How much luxury costs on the office coffee market: pods that preserve the flavour of espresso machine coffee are twice or three times more expensive than coffees available at the coffee vending machine down the hall. Having managers as their prime target, importers of super premium brands have so far tapped into less than a quarter of the places covered by “mass products” – the famous 1 RON coffees.

Though still small, the office segment has helped importers of super premium coffee avoid a sales decline in 2009. Two of the world’s best-selling super premium coffee brands, illy and Nespresso, managed to either see a slight turnover rise last year on the Romanian market or stagnate at the 2008 level.

illy sales on the office segment are estimated at over half a million euros in 2009.

In turn, Nespresso – a super premium brand of Swiss producer Nestle brought onto the Romanian market by Top Brands Distribution group, posted 800,000 euros in turnover last year and bet from the very start on the office segment, according to data provided by the company.

Italian brand Lavazza, another expensive coffee brand, bets on hallway vending machines this year.

Last year saw Nestle’s Nescafe Dolce Gusto enter the espresso machine market.

This makes Nescafe the first mainstream brand to tap into the expensive brands market of pod espresso machines.