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| 06 Nov 2008 01:06:37 pm |
 Starbucks "Red Paper Coffee Cups" are back |
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You always know the Holiday's are just around the corner when Starbucks brings their Red paper coffee cups back (along with their Holiday beverage offering). This year’s version went on sale earlier this week.
MDA |
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Category : Products
| By : Mike |  Comments [362] |  Trackbacks [264] |
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| 03 Nov 2008 02:10:47 pm |
| A new, reformulated CaterStock.com |
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We have today re-launched one of our commercial sites CaterStock.com. After initially launching early this year, we have seen an increasing desire on the part of our customers for products that can – at least in some way – be considered “Green”. As CaterStock.com was the newest and smallest of our commercial sites we felt this was the right vehicle to focus on products that can have less of an environmental impact. As of today all of the products we sell at CaterStock.com have recycled content, are recyclable or are biodegradable and / or compostable.
In addtition to CaterStock.com we have been expanding our “Green” product offering at both BaristaWorks.com and QwikStock.com. Both sites now have a "Green Products" category.
Watch for some new marketing efforts centered around CaterStock.com.
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Category : Companies
| By : Mike | Comments [347] | Trackbacks [301] |
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| 30 Oct 2008 02:20:08 pm |
| Lots of stuff today......... |
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We are pleased to again offer our Enchanted Snowmen coffee sleeve on our commercial sites BaristaWorks.com, QwikStock.com and CaterStock.com. They should be up on the sites later today.
For this year we have switched manufacturers to BriteVision, which gives us a slightly different construction, better printing and a lower price.
International Paper today announced their 3rd quarter earnings. I am no analyst, but on the whole they were not great - at least Wall Street seems to be disappointed. By way of full disclosure, I was a 20+ year employee of I.P.
Of interest to the foodservice operator is their “Consumer Packaging” Division. As noted previously, this group consists of three parts; Coated Paperboard (mills), Shorewood Packaging (high end consumer goods packaging – cosmetics, home entertainment, etc.) and – most importantly for us – Foodservice (converting).
For the Mills and Shorewood (at least), it appears that the quarter was an unmitigated disaster. The Mills are getting killed with higher input costs (pulp, chemicals, energy and transportation) and apparently cannot get enough increased pricing to offset these increases. This is important to the foodservice operator as it directly affects the price of paper packaging (i.e. hot and cold paper cups). There will continue to be a huge amount of pressure from Mother I.P. on the mills to increase their prices which they will then attempt to pass along to the converting group (I.P. Foodservice). While the specific earnings of the Mills are not reported, my guess is they lost a ton (no pun intended) of money.
Shorewood, has little to do with I.. P.’s Foodservice group, but basically they too are in very rough shape as best evidenced by their continued multi-million dollar write off’s each quarter. There seems little question they are hemorrhaging money each quarter.
The Foodservice group based upon a few pieces of anecdotal info from the Company web cast earlier today and printed materials is probably holding its own. It was reported that their volume is “OK” as much of their business is tied into the major QSR’s (McDonalds, Wendy’s, etc) who also seem to be doing “OK”. Foodservice is by far the smallest part of the Consumer Packaging Group – and arguably the best run…. It is entirely possible that they are again the only part of that group that made a dime this quarter.
Why is any of this important to you as an operator?
First, as noted above, there is the “trickle down effect” where the Mother Ship (I.P.) puts pressure on Coated Paperboard (the Mills) to perform better, which then puts price pressure on the converting business (Foodservice) which then tries to increase its prices to you – the operator.
Secondly, and there is some historical precedent here. The Consumer Packaging Group is not in and of itself a big part of I.P. It is not considered “core” to I.P., which when they are making money is not an issue, but when they are break-even (or worse) suddenly becomes a big one. With all of International Paper’s bigger issues to contend with, they could easily determine that all or part of the Consumer Packaging Group is expendable and seek to sell it (using the proceeds to pay down debt). As an operator that could be good or bad for you….
We’ll see……
SBUX made some noise yesterday when Howard told some media that it looked like SBUX had “bottomed out” in early October. See article here. Now their lawyers seemed compelled to “clarify” his statements earlier today and their earnings do not come out officially until Monday November 10th…. But still maybe his comments are telling…. Or maybe it is premature (my guess is the latter……)
That's it for today
MDA |
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Category : Companies
| By : Mike | Comments [376] | Trackbacks [678] |
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| 29 Oct 2008 10:50:58 am |
| Peets Has a Good 3rd Quarter |
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Peets, seems to have had a good 3rd quarter (see article) .
I am watching results from the public companies to try and get a good "read" on retail traffic, sales and results. Peets results (for retail) seem a bit vague as they opened some new stores, but in their verbiage they seem to imply that sales grew in both existing and new stores during the third quarter.... if true - that is good news. SBUX reports on Monday (11/10) which will tell us a lot....
MDA |
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Category : Companies
| By : Mike | Comments [135] | Trackbacks [72] |
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| 28 Oct 2008 02:59:49 pm |
| Starbucks makes bold pledge for the environment |
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Said yesterday, that ALL of its cups will be recyclable or reusable by 2015. If anyone is positioned to make this happen (see article) it is Starbucks (and maybe McDonalds).
Starbucks has demonstrated leadership in this area, being the first to get the US government to approve and a manufacturer (Solo) to produce a paper hot cup with recycled content. This cup is now increasingly avaialable in their "Bare" design.
Something to watch as the next few years unfold......
MDA |
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Category : Public Policy
| By : Mike | Comments [112] | Trackbacks [317] |
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