Business

McDonald's set to rival Starbucks on the coffee market
by Corina Ciubotaru

It's a new age of fast food restaurants: they're turning to coffee. McDonald's is expected to have the biggest success after its improved drip coffee recipe became a hit among consumers. Their coffee line is also set to expand, after the fast food chain organized a series of tests with iced coffee and sweet tea in over 800 stores and the specialized coffees are set to go on offer nationwide by 2009. McDonald's is up against Starbucks, Caribou Coffee and Dunkin' Donuts in this race, while more and more people begin buying their food and coffee from the same restaurants. The market is growing and its leader isn't in the best of times: Starbucks is experiencing lower traffic and an increase in dairy prices, both of which forcing it to adjust the approach. The people at Starbucks will start an advertising campaign on TV soon in an attempt to boost sales and are confident they will remain leaders. Still, McDonald's is barely beginning to equip its restaurants with machines for the new products and is already having to deal with franchisee's distrust in the success of a coffee line. They feel the investment will be recuperated in a long time and that the $100,000 initial investment is too big, so it will probably take a while before coffee and smoothie sales become a big part of McDonald's earnings. As part of their improvement program, the restaurants will also begin selling breakfast burritos in about one week and chicken biscuit sandwiches next year.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071118/ap_on_bi_ge/mcdonald_s_coffee;_ylt=AsQPtNV1Wg5c4m4_ex8AVbes0NUE

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 1:11 PM