Upscale Coffee Makers Drive Segment But Overall It’s Flat
Posted by TheShot on 19 Mar 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Machine
Coffee pods are a fad that is on life support at the value end (i.e., for machines under $100). However, home sales of high-end coffee pod makers are up significantly: MediaPost Publications - Upscale Coffee Makers Drive Segment But Overall It’s Flat - 03/19/2007. As I discovered in Lisbon’s fashionable Chiado district last year, an upscale market for these devices currently exists in espresso-loving Portugal at least.
But the U.S. isn’t Portugal. According to a recent NPD report, the machines are primarily gift purchases — which should be a warning alarm for the technology right there (remind anyone of Krups circa 1990?). Given that these single serving coffee pod machines use stale, pre-ground beans, these days the home espresso drinker generally has increasingly better quality options among nearby cafés and coffeehouses. Which is why I generally believe the survival of the coffee pod format depends more on the bargain end of the coffee consumer market: it can’t sustain itself in a high-end market, because the quality will always be inferior despite the machine conveniences.
UPDATE: March 21, 2007
When you’re living in England and have been conditioned to drink instant coffee for most of your life, even the downmarket home machine marks a real improvement: Sales of espresso machines soar as Brits turn their backs on instant coffee | the Daily Mail.
3 Comments »
on 21 Mar 2007 at 6:50 am -05:00T 1.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Consumer Delusion: ConsumerReports.org’s buyer’s guide to espresso makers said …
[...] Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com « Upscale Coffee Makers Drive Segment But Overall It’s Flat Consumer Delusion: ConsumerReports.org’s buyer’s guide to espresso makers [...]
on 09 Apr 2007 at 1:07 pm -05:00T 2.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Nespresso controls brand with boutiques said …
[...] Contrast with the many home espresso machine design failures, Nestlé’s Nespresso pods and machines have been something of a consumer success story. The Nespresso machines do exhibit good design and an impressive amount of convenience. For a number of home espresso lovers, however, these advantages ultimately pale in comparison to their required use of stale, pre-ground coffee. And when you add in that these machines are just as susceptible to the build-up of rancid coffee oils, and thus require regular maintenance anyway, they’re no longer quite as hands-off convenient as advertised. [...]
on 28 May 2007 at 3:28 pm -05:00T 3.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » The Home Espresso Machine Blues: Rating today’s state of consumer espresso machines said …
[...] as a new format, coffee pods are struggling somewhere between the dismal failure of disc cameras and the resounding success of digital cameras [...]