• Ad Age, Monday, September 11, 2006 12:15 PM

Both Coca-Cola and Nestle are developing superpremium java delivery systems that take aim at siphoning off customers from Starbucks' $6.4 billion global business. Coca-Cola's Far Coast, which boasts globally sourced gourmet coffee, tea and cocoa blends, is designed for coffee connoisseurs at upscale hotel and fine-dining restaurants. It will be introduced as a single concept store in Toronto's fashionable Yorkville district this month, and is backed by a print campaign using the tagline "Adventures by the cup." Coke also is unveiling a quick-service-restaurant brand called Chaqwa, to provide coffeehouse blends using the same machine that Far Coast does. Nestlé, meanwhile, is quietly developing Nescafe Specialty Solutions, a gourmet-coffee system that allows upscale food-service customers to mix concentrate with water to create hot or cold mocha, latte, French vanilla and chocolate drinks. It is testing the bag-in-a-box system with more than a dozen national food-service customers, according to sources. The company is targeting theme parks, movie theaters and high-volume fast feeders that have a consumer core of 14- to 35-year-olds.

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