THE COFFEE MARKET
The global french coffee market is mainly lead by the geant food and beverage company Kraft ( 43% of the market shares) with the famous brands: Jacques Fabre, Maxwell House, Carte Noire...
As we can observe, there are two major groups fighting on the global coffee market: Kraft Foods France and Douwe Egberts. Afterwards, brands with high personality features as Segafredo or Lavazza try to resist thanks to a positionning more specialized: italian coffee. But they are still far away from the geant Kraft. We can also notice the presence of other brands more regionalized as Malongo which are present on a tigh market and which are competing against those national brands.
However, on the market of the soluble coffees, Nestlé is, without any hesitation, the leader, followed then by Kraft Food. Those two food and beverage companies share 75% of market shares in the sector of the soluble coffees.
Nestlé, also reached 90% of the coffee capsule market thanks to its more than famous brand: Nespresso. A real coffee revolution, Nespresso has known how to create a significant competitive advantage with the creation of its capsules and machines. Innovator on this segment, Nespresso and then Nestlé, was the leader, far away from the other capsule brands. Infortunately for Nestlé, after a couple of years of leadership, competitors have been coming on the capsule market. The monopoly previously owned by Nespresso has been finally catchep up by competitors coming on the market with capsules or/and machines. Then, a multitude of competitors as Senseo (Sara Lee), Favola (Lavazza), Illy or Café Richard have launched their own coffee machines and capsules. But the biggest issue for Nestlé and its brand Nespresso, is without any doubt the creation by its competitors of compatible capsules fitting in the Nespresso machines...Bad news for Nespresso which realized 90% of its benefits thanks to the sales of capsules. The leader position of Nespresso is not anymore.
Source: le Figaro magazine