Kraft has upped the ante in the hot beverages market by launching a new in-home hot drinks system to take on Douwe Egberts’ Senseo coffee machine.
Developed in partnership with electrical specialist Braun, the Tassimo machine, which goes on sale next week, will retail at £99 - double the price of the £50 Senseo, which has sold 120,000 machines since launch in May 2004. But, unlike the Senseo, the Tassimo also makes espresso, cappuccino, tea and hot chocolate as well as fresh coffee.
Each drink is freshly brewed by inserting a disk (called a T-Disc) containing coffee, tea or chocolate. The machine reads a barcode on the disc to identify the beverage and adjusts the
temperature, brewing time and amount of water required to make the hot drink.
There are seven different T-Discs in the range: Kenco branded Caffé Crema, Espresso
and Classic Decaffeinated Coffee in packs of 18 T-Discs; Kenco Classic Medium Roast Coffee (20 per pack) and Cappuccino, which comes in a pack of nine espresso and nine concentrated milk discs; and Twinings English Breakfast Tea (20 per pack) and Suchard Hot Chocolate (16 per pack). Each pack comes with an rsp of £3.29, compared with £2.19 for a pack of 18 Senseo coffee pods.
Kraft will support the launch with a marketing campaign worth £9.5m to include a £6.5m spend on TV and press ads and £3m on demonstrations.
Anome Oyetey, hot beverages buyer for Sainsbury - which is stocking the machine and four T-Disc variants - said the concept tapped into the growth in café culture and real coffee and added value to a declining hot beverages category.
“It will start off small but I believe the concept could be in all homes in five or six years’ time,” he added.
Premier Foods is giving Ambrosia a £4m boost with the first TV ad campaign since it acquired the custard, milk puddings and pot desserts brand from Unilever in December 2003. A new ‘Happy Tummies’ commercial will air for the first time on Monday (January 17). It moves away from previous ads that concentrated on the provenance and heritage of Ambrosia by featuring face-painted tummies getting excited over Ambrosia pot desserts.
Sean McAllister