Background Information
Company History
Keurig Inc. was originated in 1992 by Peter Gragone and John Sylvan. The company was constructed on the concept of coffee brewing systems, and their focus was to serve high quality, fresh coffee. Keurig's groundbreaking single cup brewing system, presented in 1998, allows people to brew the perfect cup of gourmet coffee in less than a minute, without having to grind beans, measure coffee, handle filters or clean up (The Keurig Story, 2013). In 2002, Green Mountain Coffee Roaster Inc., a Vermont company, paid $14.4 million for 41 percent of Keurig. Four years later, it purchased the remainder of Keurig, selling the brewers at a sensible price and creating money on the K-Cups, which only worked with Keurig machines (Purpose, Mission & Values, 2013) Green Mountain’s vales, which can be found on their website, are; We Partner for Mutual Success, We Innovate with Passion, We Play to Win and We Brew a Better World.
In 2008, Keurig made it to the Forbes ‘200 Best Small Companies’ list, but 2011 was the pioneer year. From January to September, sales rose over three hundred percent. This was due to their K-cup agreements with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts (Badenhausen & Settimi, 2011). Today, the corporation is a leader in specialty coffee and coffee makers, and is known for its award-winning coffees, innovative Keurig Single Cup brewing technology, and publicly respectable business practices. Green Mountain supports local and global communities by “off-setting one hundred percent of its greenhouse gas emissions, investing in sustainably grown coffee and donation at least five percent of its pre-tan profits to social and environmental projects.” (Purpose, Mission & Values, 2013)
The KeurigVue was introduced in 2012 as a plan to increase customer choices in brewing systems (The Keurig Story, 2013). The main initiatives of the Vue