Specialty Coffee Houses, who is your competition?

It's not Starbucks, it's the convenience store.

Coffee Sales at Convenience Stores

Ninety percent of convenience store customers purchase coffee at a convenience store over any other retail format.

Convenience stores sold more than $5.2 billion in coffee in 2004 ($4.0 billion in coffee sales, plus $1.2 billion in cappuccino/specialty coffee sales. That works out to, on average, coffee sales of $37,274 per store.

More than three out of four adult Americans say that they drink coffee either daily or regularly, according to the National Coffee Association, and convenience stores are one of the preferred destinations for coffee drinkers.

Among all beverages consumed in the United States on a daily basis, coffee ranks third in consumption, with 51 percent of adults saying they drank coffee daily. Seventy-nine percent of adults said that they drank water (bottled and tap) daily, while 58 percent said they drank soft drinks every day.

Overall, more than 108 million people in the U.S. are daily coffee drinkers, and more than 166 million have consumed coffee in the past year.

The U.S. per capita consumption of coffee is estimated to be 424 servings, which includes in-home and out-of-home roast and ground, instant, and ready-to-drink (bottled/canned) coffee.

More than one third of all coffee consumed at work (35 percent) is brought in from outside the office.

More daily coffee drinkers consume regular coffee (41 percent) than any other type. Twelve percent drink specialty coffee, 8 percent drink decaf and 7 percent drink instant coffee.

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