Costa Coffee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Costa Coffee | |
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| Type | Public owned by Whitbread Plc |
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| Founded | 1971 |
| Headquarters | Dunstable, Bedfordshire, UK |
| Key people | Sergio and Bruno Costa (Founders) |
| Area served | United Kingdom,South Asia,China, Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe |
| Industry | Hospitality |
| Products | coffee, small snacks and soft drinks |
| Parent | Whitbread |
| Website | http://www.costa.co.uk/ |
Costa Coffee is a coffee house company based in the United Kingdom founded in 1971 by Italian brothers Vilas Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops.
The company was acquired by and is now a subsidiary of Whitbread Plc.
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[edit] History
Bruno & Sergio Costa set up their coffee roastery in Lambeth, London in 1971, supplying local caterers and Italian coffee shops with their slow-roasted blend. Costa branched out to retailing coffee in 1978, when their first store opened in Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, England. Later, they sold the business to Whitbread.
As of 2006 Costa Coffee is the sponsor of Whitbread Book Awards, which are now called the Costa Book Awards.
[edit] Retail Branches
Costa Coffee operates over 370 stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It also operates nearly 200 outlets in airports and within Ottakar's, Waterstone's bookstores, W. H. Smith and Homebase stores, Abbey banks and Marriott Hotels.
Costa Coffee also has branches in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Egypt, Qatar, Oman, Emirates, Syria, China, India and Pakistan. Their biggest store in South Asia is in Zamzama Karachi a two story building.
[edit] Coffee production
Costa have their own roastery and employ the only three Italian Master Roasters in the UK[citation needed]. The blend served in retail stores is known as "Mocha Italia" and contains six parts aricaba beans and one part robusta beans [1].
The coffee machines Costa use are unique to the company and have been refined over 20 years in consultation with their three Italian Master Roasters [2].
