Coca-Cola continues its plunge into overtaking the beverage market by making a $5.1 billion investment to buy out the U.K.’s Costa Coffee. Whitman’s Costa Coffee is the second largest chain distributor of coffee in the world, and by adding them to the Coke brand, it expands the variety of Coke products beyond just carbonated sodas.
With more countries looking for an increase in health-conscious beverage choices alongside imposing sugar taxes, a lot of beverage companies have showed interest in expanding beyond just soda. Hot beverages have been the one department in which Coca-Cola has been lacking, so by taking stake in Costa Coffee, they simultaneously fill a gap in their product line while also taking control of over 4,000 coffee outlets across the U.K. and Europe.
We recently saw PepsiCo take a stake in Sodastream in order to expand their market, so it seems the two big name brands in soft drinks will continue to battle it out over the expansion of their product line. The more one of the two takes over, the more it will challenge the other to grow just as strong.
