India Inc:
Tata Global Beverages, the manufacturer of Tata Tea and Tetley Tea, has signed a multi-year partnership with US-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc (GMCR) to distribute and sell Eight O'Clock coffee, Tetley tea and Good Earth tea. GCMR, a speciality coffee roaster, will offer their Keurig K-Cup and Vue packs for these products throughout the US and Canada from later this year.
The latest deal signals the entry of Eight O’Clock Coffee into the fast-growing world of single serve coffee.
“Eight O'Clock Coffee company and GMCR plan to make a select offering of Eight O'Clock coffee K-Cup packs available through in-home and away-from-home channels in US and Canada in 2012,” Tata Global Beverages and GMCR said in a joint statement this week.
The tea packs will hit the shelves by next year.
Hameed Huq, managing director of Tata Coffee, said: “Single serve has been growing and showing double digit growth in US, Germany and other European countries. Eight O' Clock has entered this high growth arena.
“We are now aggressively looking at growth through acquisition as it is the quickest against a greenfield project. We have a program of expanding our instant coffee plant by 25 per cent at Theni in Madurai that should go online by the end of this fiscal year. But the next big step for Tata Coffee would be a meaningful acquisition both in the soluble coffee and also in roast and ground arena.”
The financial details of the new agreement with GCMR have not been disclosed.
Tata Global Beverages, one of the leading beverage companies in the world, also has a joint venture with US-based Starbucks Coffee to open and operate Starbucks Cafes in India.
