The Boston Globe this morning reports that Starbucks has signed a deal with Ahold-owned Stop & Shop to open cafés in new and existing supermarkets in New England, New York and New Jersey. According to the Globe, “the in-store Starbucks will offer a complete menu, and certain locations will feature table seating and wireless Internet access. The shops will also offer packaged Starbucks coffees that are not typically sold in grocery stores.”
The interesting thing is that Stop & Shop already has a deal with Dunkin’ Donuts, and has 130 of that chain’s doughnut shops inside its supermarkets.
The interesting thing is that Stop & Shop already has a deal with Dunkin’ Donuts, and has 130 of that chain’s doughnut shops inside its supermarkets.
- KC's View:
-
Stop & Shop has more than 550 stores, so it seems unlikely – if not contractually impossible – for there to be Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts locations in the same unit.
Though at the same time, this move seems like a clear move by Starbucks to continue to challenge Dunkin’s New England dominance.
At some level, we wonder if Stop & Shop’s strategy actually opens up opportunities for companies like Caribou Coffee and Tim Horton’s, which suddenly look like they might offer differential advantages to other companies. Ironically, Krispy Kreme might have been well positioned to take advantage of all this maneuvering…but is embroiled in so many of its own problems that it can’t even get out of its own way.
