Starbucks goes Blonde

Starbucks announced Tuesday that it would introduce a new roast called Blonde to complement its medium and dark roast varieties. The Willow and Veranda blends are aimed at capturing the more than 40 percent of American coffee drinkers who prefer a lighter roastand the more than 70 percent of premium grocery-store coffee sales that fall in the medium and light roast ranges.

Along with the new roast rollout will come a new packaging system organized by roast, so that customers can choose between light, medium and dark varieties. The system echoes the Seattles Best Coffee Levels system, introduced last November, which has five roast options for consumers. In August, 30 percent of all Levels purchasers were reported to be new to the Seattles Best brand, and sales of the lightest levels, 1 and 2, accounted for 16 percent of sales.

Seattles Best Coffee is Starbucks-owned, and the Levels introduction was overseen by Starbucks president for channel development Jeff Hansberry, who was on hand Monday to introduce Blonde. The Blonde announcement rides the coattails of the Levels success: Starbucks is opening up the spectrum and opportunities for new consumers, says director of green coffee quality and coffee master Andrew Linnemann.

In addition to introducing new customers to the Starbucks brand, the lighter roasts offer direct competition to companies like Tullys, which has for some time organized its roasts into spirited (light), balanced (medium) and grand (dark) categories.

Blonde also takes on Tullys delivery system: In addition to whole-bean and ground coffee, Blonde will debut in VIA and K-Cup (Keurig) packs. K-Cup single-serve coffee pack sales, which Starbucks has cited as a major driver of coffee-industry growth, totaled nearly $2 billion last year across the industry; Hansberry announced in August that the company intends to build its K-Cup sales into a $1 billion business over time. Tully and Keurig are both owned by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.