Free Republic

Germany's JAB Holding Co is leading a $13.9 billion buyout of Keurig Green Mountain Inc, known for its K-Cup single-serve coffee pods, in a deal that would strengthen its position in North America. The deal, pitched at a rich 78 percent premium to Keurig's Friday closing price, is the latest by JAB, the investment vehicle of the billionaire Reimann family, as it tries to become a formidable competitor to world coffee market leader Nestle SA. Here's what caught my eye ... The stock, which last traded at $92 in May, is heavily shorted, with nearly 13 percent of the...

It’s been called the “razor blade business model.” A company sells a product like a battery-operated razor blade handle at a relatively low price in order to sell a complementary consumable product later, like the astoundingly costly Gillette Power Fusion Proglide cartridge, $18 for four blades, which then get thrown away. But it could also be called the Keurig “K-Cup” business model. Once a consumer buys the coffee machine, the coffee drinker may spend as much as $50 to $60 per pound on the coffee contained in the K-Cups, considerably more than the cost of even Starbucks’s breakfast blend, which...

For one, 'they're kind of expensive,' John Sylvan says (Newser) If anyone would brew his morning joe using K-Cups, you'd think it would be the inventor of the K-Cup himself. But John Sylvan, whose single-serve pods revolutionized the coffee landscape, sticks with making coffee the old-fashioned way. "I don't have [pods]. They're kind of expensive to use," John Sylvan tells James Hamblin, writing for the Atlantic. "Plus it's not like drip coffee is tough to make." But besides being steeper in cost, the plastic-and-foil pods that made up most of Keurig Green Mountain's $4.7 billion in revenue last year have...

Your coffee maker can now brew your entire breakfast before you head out the door in the morning. Golden Valley-based General Mills has launched Nature Valley-brand oatmeal that’s made in a Keurig brewer – a machine that makes single servings of coffee, tea and other beverages using a single-serve capsule or pod (also known as a K-Cup), the Washington Post says. Here’s how it works: Hot water from the Keurig runs through flavor pods (K-Cups) and into a mug filled with Nature Valley Bistro Cups oatmeal, to be mixed with an additional packet of nuts and fruit. This is General...