Next month, Starbucks Corp. will lower prices by 10 percent for its Starbucks and Seattle’s Best brand packaged coffees sold in supermarkets and other retail stores.
Prices will decrease from $9.99 to $8.99 for a 12-ounce bag of Starbucks coffee beginning May 10, Jim Olson, a spokesman for the Seattle-based company, told Bloomberg in an interview. “This will allow us to both enhance the value that we’re providing our existing packaged coffee customers, and hopefully increase the frequency [with] which they purchase Starbucks and Seattle’s Best coffee, as well as attract new customers,” he said.
In 2011, Starbucks raised prices of its packaged branded coffee by 12 percent and 15 percent for Seattle’s Best coffee sold in grocery and retail stores, according to Olson.
Prices of Starbucks Via instant coffee, K-Cups, Tazo Tea and chilled bottled drinks will remain the same.
Starbucks’ channel development strategy seeks to grow its line of grocery products. For the year ended Sept. 30, 2013, grocery products also sold through warehouse clubs, drug stores and convenience stores increased 50 percent to $1.29 billion.
