The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Cafes Moving Into Ralphs Grocery Stores
The specialty coffee and tea retailer's new full-service cafés
will appear in select stores in 2006
LOS ANGELES - January 27, 2006 - The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf , Los Angeles-based specialty coffee and tea retailer, has announced that their strategic partnership with Ralphs Grocery Company has been taken to another prestigious level with the introduction of on-site cafés. These in-store locations will provide a greater level of service for customers wanting to enjoy fresh products from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and make Ralphs even more of a full-service shopping destination.
Melvin Elias, chief operating officer of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf®, said, "We are extremely happy to continue and strengthen our partnership with Ralphs Grocery Company. We have enjoyed so much success with our existing brew program that this move made great sense for both companies and our customers."
This enhanced agreement strengthens the current Proudly Brew program begun in 2005, which placed the chain's freshly roasted coffees, whole leaf teas, and hot chocolate in more than 320 Ralphs service deli locations. For the new program, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® will immediately replace Seattle's Best Coffee® in 11 existing cafés. The initial agreement is for 24 in-store cafés with plans to double this number throughout the three-year contract.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf®-branded cafés will offer a full range of beverage items, available in limited flavors. Ralphs employees will operate the cafés, which will serve the full range of menu items, although some limited edition and promotional items will be available only at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® locations. Customers will continue to obtain packaged coffee in the aisles of the grocer's coffee section.
It was also announced that Ralphs will have the California exclusive for the licensing rights to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cafés in all large supermarket chains (well over 50 locations).
In this partnership agreement, Ralphs Grocery Company was represented by its vice president of legal services, Mary M. Kasper, and International Coffee & Tea, LLC was represented by its general counsel and senior director of legal affairs, Terry Mansky.
About The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf®
Founded in 1963, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is the oldest and largest privately held chain of specialty coffee and tea stores in the United States. With a reputation for excellence, the company is a leader in product innovations, having developed the original Ice Blended®. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf serves more than 100 million coffee and tea beverages annually worldwide. Providing the highest quality coffees and teas for forty years, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf currently has 389 stores in California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Brunei, Indonesia, UAE, Israel, Australia, China, Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar, and the Philippines and continues to expand both domestically and internationally. 234 of the stores are company owned; 159 are domestic. For more information, visit www.coffeebean.com.
About Ralphs
Ralphs Supermarkets was founded in 1873 and currently operates more than 300 conventional supermarkets in California from its headquarters in Los Angeles. The company is a division of The Kroger Co., (NYSE:KR), one of the nation's largest food retailers, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information about Ralphs, please visit www.ralphs.com.
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