Costa Coffee Wiki

Costa Coffee is a coffee house company based in the United Kingdom founded in 1971 by Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. Since 1995 it has been a subsidiary of, the Whitbread company, since when the company has grown to over 1700 stores in the UK and abroad. The company's current managing director is John Derkach and Adrian Johnson is Chief Operating Officer.

Story

Bruno and Sergio Costa set up their coffee roastery in Lambeth, London in 1971, supplying local caterers and coffee shops with their slow-roasted blend mocha Italia. Costa branched out to retailing coffee in 1978, when their first store opened in Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, England.

In 1995, the business was acquired by Whitbread and is now a subsidiary of Whitbread Company. In 2009 Costa celebrated the opening of their 1000th store in Cardiff, and is consequently the largest coffee chain in the UK. In 2010 they acquired 'Coffee Heaven', which had a strong presence in central and eastern Europe, for £36m adding another 79 stores. By the end of 2010 the company had overtaken Starbucks in the UK, taking 37.6% of the market share based on turnover.

Locations

Costa Coffee operates 1175 outlets in the United Kingdom as of January 2011, making it the largest British chain in terms of stores. Internationally it operates 442 stores throughout the world in 28 countries.

Its outlets can be found in airports and within Waterstone's bookstores, WHSmith, Homebase branches, Marriott Hotels, Odeon Cinemas, Tesco stores, Pizza Hut branches, Beefeater Pubs, Moto and RoadChef motorway services and in some workplaces. Smaller sub-units are also set up in railway stations and airports throughout the UK. Costa Coffee also have small outlets positioned on out-of-town business parks, often among other food retailers. Their biggest branch is located in Dubai and can seat 320 people.

• Bahrain
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• China
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Egypt
• Greece
• Hungary
• India
• Ireland
• Jordan
• Kuwait
• Latvia
• Lebanon
• Montenegro
• Oman
• Pakistan
• Poland
• Qatar
• Romania
• Russia hay day
• Saudi Arabia
• Serbia
• Slovenia
• Syria
• Turkey
• United Arab Emirates