SOUTH AFRICA – Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa (CCBSA) has cut ribbon at its first Costa Coffee outlet in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This was revealed by CCBSA in a linked in post applauding the team that foresaw the establishment of the store stating, “We work and win in teams at CCBSA and applaud the team led by Basetsana – Bame Modimogale & Natasha Chetty.

“A big thank you to the greater team for their contribution to the success of this launch!” CCBSA noted.

The move follows a successful trial opening of a Costa outlet on the ground floor of CCBSA’s headquarters in March.

The new outlet is located is in the flagship store of the Devland cash and carry chain, which has 24 supermarket and wholesale outlets in South Africa.

The premium coffee brand was founded in UK in 1971 by two brothers Bruno and Sergio Costa as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops.

Later in 1981, the brothers opened their first Costa Coffee shop in England’s capital, London.

It was in this innovative shop that the brothers became the first coffee providers in London to serve Espresso and crafted Cappuccino in porcelain cups so that customers could experience coffee at its best, indicates the company on its website.

Soon shops started opening up across different locations, with the business to later be acquired by Whitbread Plc, who later sold it to the Coca-Cola Company in a transaction pegged at US$4.9 billion in 2019.

The deal saw Coca-Cola move into the coffee space in a big way having over 3,000 stores in more than 30 countries across the global.

Coca-Cola has continued to widen its reach in Europe, China, Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific and bringing new innovative offerings to the market.

Costa Coffee is the second largest coffee chain globally after Starbucks. Like Starbucks, it has a small footprint in Africa. Its main market in the region is Egypt with 38 outlets where it partners with Americana.

Americana holds the master franchises for a number of fast food brands including KFC, Pizza Hut, Krispy Kreme, Baskin Robbins and Olive Garden.

The announcement by CCBSA follow’s Starbuck’s revelation that it plans to open eight new stores in South Africa under the new ownership of Rand Capital Coffee.

South Africa’s coffee consumption rate has risen at CAGR of 4.6% from 2016 – 2020

Rand Capital Coffee bought the licence of Starbucks in the country for R 7 million (US$445k) from the struggling Taste Holdings at the end of last year.

Under the new owner, the coffee chain is expanding its footprints in Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Johannesburg and Pretoria, with the new stores scheduled to open in the four weeks from mid-November to mid-December.

The move will see the company employ 69 full-time employees and promote 21, bringing the total complement of permanent employees to 300.

According to a report by BizCommunity, South Africa’s coffee consumption has grown from approximately 589,000 60kg bags in the 2016/2017 period to approximately 675,000 60kg bags during 2019/2020 at a CAGR of 4.6%.

Despite the rise in intake, the country’s coffee consumption accounts for less than 0.5% of global consumption which USDA estimates to be 166.4 million 60kg bags in 2019/2020.

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