Costa Coffee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Costa Coffee | |
|---|---|
| Image:Costacoffee.jpg | |
| Type | Franchise owned by Whitbread |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Headquarters | Dunstable, Bedfordshire, UK |
| Area served | United Kingdom,South Asia, China, Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe |
| Key people | Sergio and Bruno Costa (Founders) |
| Industry | Hospitality |
| Products | coffee, small snacks and soft drinks |
| Parent | Whitbread |
| Website | http://www.costa.co.uk/ |
Costa Coffee is a coffee house company based in the United Kingdom founded in 1971 by Italian brothers Vilas Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops.
The company was acquired by and is now a subsidiary of Whitbread franchise.
Contents |
[edit] History
Bruno and Sergio Costa set up their coffee roastery in Lambeth, London in 1971, supplying local caterers and coffee shops with their slow-roasted blend. Costa branched out to retailing coffee in 1978, when their first store opened in Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, England. Later, they sold the business to Whitbread.
As of 2006 Costa Coffee is the sponsor of Whitbread Book Awards, which are now called the Costa Book Awards.
[edit] Retail Branches
Costa Coffee operates 600 stores in the United Kingdom. It also operates nearly 200 outlets in airports and within Waterstone's bookstores, W. H. Smith and Homebase stores, Abbey banks, Marriott Hotels, Empire Cinemas and in some workplaces.
Costa Coffee also has branches in Bahrain, Bulgaria, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, India, Ireland, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Poland, Qatar, Pakistan, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Syria, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Their biggest store in South Asia is at Connaught Place Delhi in inner circle.
[edit] Coffee production
Costa have their own roastery and employ the only three Italian Master Roasters in the UK. The blend served in retail stores is known as "Mocha Italia" and contains six parts aricaba beans and one part robusta beans.[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Costa Coffee at Motorway Services
- Costa Coffee website
- Costa Book Awards website
- Costa Foundation website
Whitbread plc |
|---|
Current Businesses:
Premier Inn ·
Beefeater ·
Brewers Fayre ·
Costa Coffee ·
Touchbase
|
| Annual revenue: £1,584m GBP (Image:Green Arrow Up Darker.svg10% FY 2006) · Employees: 49,848 · Stock symbol: LSE: WTB · Website: whitbread.co.uk |
