Starbucks instant enters coffee fray

Starbucks debuted its Via line of instant coffees across Canada and the U.S. on Tuesday in a market that has largely been shunned by customers of the high-end chain.

At one Starbucks in downtown Toronto, a lineup of at least 20 people was growing by the minute because of the free samples of instant Italian Roast being offered.

A Starbucks employee weaving between customers to clean up the milk-and-cream centre enthused that the instant coffee was "unlike any other instant coffee.

"It's just our own coffee ground up so finely that it dissolves in water. There's no preservatives like in usual instant coffee," she said when asked about the new offering.

However, most customers seemed to be ordering their usual lattes and Americanos. When one customer purchased a couple of packets of instant ($3.45 plus tax for a three-pack), the cashier seemed genuinely impressed.

Instant coffee is one of those products that isn't lionized for being more convenient, despite a convenience-adoring culture. And maybe for good reason.

While instant coffee is pervasive throughout Europe, accounting for as much as 80 per cent of coffee sales in the U.K., the insta-brews haven't won over North American taste buds, in large part because of their image as an inferior knock-off of drip-brewed beverages.

'Based on the success we've had, we feel strongly that we're sitting on a very big opportunity.' —Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO

It's a perception Starbucks executives are trying to change.

They hope the cylindrical 3-packs and 12-packs of coffee will eventually be as prevalent on store shelves as Starbucks' packaged coffee is now. The instant coffees are available in Colombia and Italian Roast flavours, and more varieties are expected to be introduced down the road.

Consumer Reports put a Starbucks instant brand to the test in August, comparing it to brewed coffee. The comparison focused on the Colombian flavour.

The testers found the Starbucks instant was similar in quality to the brewed coffee, and was "good, not great." They found Starbucks' Via instant had more subdued flavour, wasn't as bitter and had a slight cereal taste.

The instant coffee market is worth about $21 billion US worldwide, and Starbucks hopes to capitalize on it.

"Based on the success we've had, we feel strongly that we're sitting on a very big opportunity," said Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz during a conference call with journalists. "What's going to sell Via at the end of the day is that [it] delivers in the cup. Most people will not be able to tell the difference."

Cost a factor

Experts see both opportunity and challenges for Starbucks.

Bob Goldin, an analyst at the Chicago-based food consultant Technomic Inc., said Starbucks faces twin hurdles of perception and price.

Starbucks instant comes in just shy of a dollar a cup, compared to the pennies a cup of home-brewed java can cost.

Indeed, at one office where instant coffee was being shared, reviews were lukewarm. One co-worker who insisted she was no coffee snob apologetically said she could not give it two thumbs-up.

A co-worker turned down the offer of a cup of instant, gamely holding up his cup of small Tim Hortons ($1.23 including tax,) and saying he would continue to drink his "coffee of the people."