As consumers have become more sophisticated regarding coffee- and tea-based drinks, the coffee category has become more competitive. Fast food and fast casual coffee houses and donut shops find themselves competing not only with other establishments in their segment, but also with full-service foodservice brands and restaurants that are revamping and upgrading their coffee offerings in order to benefit from the lucrative coffee segment. Thus, fast food and fast casual coffee houses and donut shops are taking tactics such as extending their service hours, expanding their menu offerings, renovating spaces to be more inviting, and adopting technology in order to make the ordering experience faster and more accurate for customers.

This report builds on the analysis presented in Mintel’s Coffee Houses and Donut Shops-US, December 2013, as well as the November 2012, October 2011, June 2010, May 2009, and July 2008 reports of the same title.

The report focuses on coffee house and donut shop trends and menu analysis using Mintel’s Menu Insights database as well as consumer survey analysis revealing behavior and attitudes toward the segment. The sample of coffee houses and donut shops in Menu Insights includes brands such as Arabica Coffee House, Caribou Coffee, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Coffee Beanery, Dunkin' Donuts, Gloria Jean's Coffees, Nestle Toll House Cafe by Chip, Seattle's Best Coffee, Starbucks, and Tim Hortons.

This report covers two types of foodservice operations in which prepared coffee and coffee beverages are a primary offering: coffee houses and donut shops.

Coffee houses include freestanding stores, kiosks, and coffee carts, as well as those located in malls, airports and other transportation hubs, etc. Coffee shops operated under contract in locations that are not generally open or accessible to the public, such as those primarily for the use of employees, are excluded.

Donut shops includes similarly housed units where donuts and baked goods are prominently featured on the menu, but which also sell prepared coffee and coffee drinks, often as the primary offering.

The report excludes other types of outlets that sell coffee, such as restaurants, bagel shops, smoothie shops, truck stops, convenience stores, gas stations, and diners (although some of these outlets are considered throughout the report as part of addressing the competitive landscape).

Mintel Menu Insights is a quarterly census of more than 3,000 US restaurant menus (30% market coverage) covering all commercial segments and US census regions, with trend going back to Q2 2004. Mintel Menu Insights tracks 29 unique menu item attributes including flavor, preparation (physical and/or cooking), menu type/section, cuisine type, menu claims, etc., grouped into six major categories from macro restaurant, menu, plate, item dish, and beverage to micro ingredient detail.

Tracking features include total menu incidence (menu mentions), restaurant penetration (percentage of restaurants menuing), calories, and price, including filtering capabilities for all menu items, only new menu items, deleted menu items, or any menu items with changes over prior period. The database includes more than 20,000 unique ingredients and close to 290,000 unique menu item dishes updated quarterly. Mintel Menu Insights is backed up with a dedicated team of in-house data entry, data editors, data quality, product development, and industry analysts focused 100% on these menu data and trends.

In addition to quantitative consumer research, Mintel also conducted an online discussion group among a demographically mixed group of adults aged 18+. This discussion group was asynchronous (ie not run in real time), functioning like a blog or bulletin board, with questions remaining posted for a predetermined period of time. This method allows participants to respond reflectively, at their leisure, or to log off to think about any issues raised, and return later to respond. Participants were recruited from GMI’s online consumer panel.

For this report, the online discussion panel ran in the month of October 2014, and all participants quoted had visited a coffee house, tea or donut shop during the previous month. This report contains some of their written opinions, distributed throughout different sections. Only minor grammatical errors in their responses have been corrected.

For the purposes of this report, Mintel commissioned exclusive consumer research through GMI to explore consumer attitudes and behaviors toward fast food and fast casual coffee houses and donut shops. Mintel was responsible for the survey design, data analysis, and reporting. Fieldwork was conducted in September 2014 among a sample of 2,000 adults aged 18+ with access to the internet.

Mintel selects survey respondents by gender, age, household income, and region so that they are proportionally representative of the US adult population using the internet. Mintel also slightly over-samples, relative to the population, respondents that are Hispanic or Black to ensure an adequate representation of these groups in our survey results and to allow for more precise parameter estimates from our reported findings. Please note that Mintel surveys are conducted online and in English only. Hispanics who are not online and/or do not speak English are not included in the survey results.

While race and Hispanic origin are separate demographic characteristics, Mintel often compares them to each other. Please note that the responses for race (White, Black, Asian, Native American, or other race) will overlap those that also are Hispanic, because Hispanics can be of any race.

The following is a list of abbreviations used in this report:

The following terms may appear in this report:

Generations are discussed within this report, and they are defined as:

* also known as Generation Y or Echo Boomers

** previously known as Post-Millennials, Matrix Generation

In order to provide an inflation-adjusted price value for markets, Mintel uses the CPI to deflate current prices. The CPI is defined as follows: