Coffee Brand War Australia, David vs Goliath. - Qingdao Glass Jar Group Co.,Ltd

Member-only story

Dean Gee

DataDrivenInvestor

Coffee bombs are dropping in ‘G’day Australia.’ It’s the big international brand against the little local brand.

What's the fight about?

A little background first. Vittoria is an Australian brand and has essentially built its reputation through hotels and business conferences as a coffee brand.

Vittoria recently ventured into the supermarket aisles with a freeze-dried instant coffee packaged in a glass jar.

By all reports, Vittoria has taken market share away from a stalwart freeze-dried coffee brand called ‘Moccona,’ which is a brand in the portfolio of a large multinational Dutch American company owned by JDE Peets.

If you don’t know JDE Peets, they are the world's largest tea and coffee company serving around 4,200 cups of coffee or tea per second worldwide.

I quote this from their ‘About Us’ page on their website.

‘JDE Peet’s is the world’s leading pure-play coffee and tea company, serving approximately 4,200 cups of coffee or tea per second. JDE Peet’s unleashes the possibilities of coffee and tea in more than 100 markets with a portfolio of over 50 brands including L’OR, Peet’s, Jacobs, Senseo, Tassimo, Douwe Egberts, Old Town, Super, Pickwick and Moccona.

In 2022, JDE Peet’s generated total sales of EUR 8.2 billion and employed a global workforce of more than 20,000 employees. Read more about our journey towards a coffee and tea for every cup at www.JDEPeets.com.’

Goliath, in this story, the big multinational, believes they have a monopoly on glass jar packaging.

Is it right that a company can claim a packaging type as its property? I understand the unique shape that a corporation may develop for its glass jar, but as you can see from the photo below, the branding and labels are very different.

The shape of the jar is different too, so Goliath aka Moccona is saying that they own the pack type of glass jars and no other coffee brand may sell their coffee in the same size glass jar. Even if the label and shape of…