OTR Global: Green Mountain Coffee Losing K-Cup Share

According to a pre-market report on Wednesday by OTR Global,

Green Mountain Coffee RoastersGMCR

is losing market share in the all important, fast-growing single-serve coffee market.

OTR identifies private label makers such as Treehouse THS and others gaining market share at the expense of Green Mountain whose Keurig packs tend to be higher priced.

Green Mountain's key patents on K-cup technology expired in 2012, opening up private label makers to enter the lucrative market. Retailers such as Treehouse,

KrogerKG

and

Whole Foods MarketWFM

have been selling their cheaper, private label K-cup brands side by side with the more expensive brand names.

Private label products are presenting a serious challenge as consumers continue to feel comfortable making these purchases and aren't “embarrassed” at buying what is generally perceived to be inferior products.

In a

press release, Starbucks SBUX identified the single-serve market to be growing at nine times faster than the overall coffee market.

Shares of Green Mountain were trading lower by 2.2 percent in pre-market following the report, but have recovered more than half of the losses since. Shares were seen trading lower by less than 1 percent at 12:00PM.

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