The History of Coffee
  • Culture of Commodity
    • Early Coffeehouses
    • Modern Coffeehouses
  • Origins
    • Overview
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • The Americas
  • Migration
    • Timeline
    • Description of Timeline
  • Growth of Production
    • Factors of Growth
    • Case Studies
  • Coffee in the Modern World
    • Trends in Coffee
    • Starbucks vs Maxwell House Case Study

Starbucks vs Maxwell House: Two Companies that Changed Modern Coffee

​Two companies have made significant changes to the modern coffee market under the same premise: fast affordable coffee. In the late 1800’s a coffee broker named Joel Cheek and his business partner John Neal, founded a wholesale grocery distribution company named the Nashville Coffee and Manufacturing company. At this grocery store they sold the Maxwell House coffee with the slogan “good to the last drop”, after claims that President Roosevelt stated this upon tasting the coffee. The company was a success and by 1924 the company focused on large-scale advertising. This investment proved to be successful and by 1925 Maxwell House Coffee was the most well-known brand in the United States. As was explained in the "Trends in Coffee" section Starbucks followed a similar pattern. After finding success through the introduction of espresso drinks Starbucks introduced wide scale marketing efforts to make consumers aware that they could have Italian coffee at their local Starbucks coffee house. Maxwell House easily brought coffee to customers through their connected grocery stores and Starbucks brought the coffee house aesthetic to the general public. Both of these companies saw the demand in their market and through large scale advertising changed the coffee consumer industry. Maxwell House brought coffee to the average persons breakfast table and Starbucks brought Italian espresso drinks to the average American neighbourhood. 
Picture
  1. Pendergrast, M. (2010). Uncommon grounds: the history of coffee and how it transformed our world. New York: Basic Books.
  2. ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_HN_3ulO9M
  3. Image from Starbucks Canada Website 2017
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  • Culture of Commodity
    • Early Coffeehouses
    • Modern Coffeehouses
  • Origins
    • Overview
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • The Americas
  • Migration
    • Timeline
    • Description of Timeline
  • Growth of Production
    • Factors of Growth
    • Case Studies
  • Coffee in the Modern World
    • Trends in Coffee
    • Starbucks vs Maxwell House Case Study