ASA Rule Over Starbucks

In the ultra-competitive oligopoly of the coffee world, Costa Coffee has gone one up against Starbucks ,after the rival coffee chain’s complaint to the advertising watchdog about Costa’s provocative ‘7 out of 10 coffee lovers prefer Costa’, campaign was rejected.

The Advertising Standards Authority ruled in Costa’s favour, after carrying out an investigation into the ad campaign which debuted in March last year. Starbucks had complained that the ads’ headlines “Starbucks Drinkers Prefer Costa” and “7 out of 10 Coffee Lovers Prefer Costa” were misleading, and that the research behind Costa’s claim was invalid.

The issue was that the phrase was believed to imply a preference for all Costa products, when it referred only to cappuccinos. Costa, which no longer uses the ad, disagreed and argued that the headline claims on their own were meaningless and were therefore incapable of substantiation.

The ASA ruled that no further action was necessary prompting Jim Slater, marketing director of Costa Coffee, to say: “Costa has been totally exonerated. The adjudication is good news, but not a surprise.”

Grean Tea Gets Green Light

Tetley has announced that its Green Tea line has achieved number one status in the retail market for the first time after claiming a 30.5% share. The green tea category is currently worth some £17m per annum and is rising at a rate of 12.7% MAT.

Peter Haigh, brand development manager at Tetley for Out of Home, said: “Our blenders have an expertise in developing products that are particularly suited to the UK palate and as such we have helped to give green tea a mass appeal. We are delighted that the work we have put in to raise the profile of the new category is now coming to fruition.”

In further news, the first packs of Tetley to be bear the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal became available to buy through wholesalers and cash and carries in May. The packs are only available to out of home caterers allowing operators to be the first in the UK to service the product prior to them becoming available nationally via retail.

Storm in a Tea Cup

A Devon farmer attempted to gain European protection for the term ‘Devon cream tea’, but residents of neighbouring Cornwall, claims that their county invented the concept.

Paul Winterton, who is general manager of Langage farm in Plymouth, claimed that he has the interests of customers at heart: I feel people are being short-changed…with an excellent food like the Devon cream tea, you need to know its origin.”

If he wins, only teas produced, processed or prepared in Devon could claim to be cream teas, in the same way that Cheddar cheese must come from the Somerset town.

Mike Pearce of Cornishcream.com responded, saying: “There is only one cream tea, and that’s the Cornish cream tea. The application should be thrown out.” The precise geographical origin of the cream is much contested in the region, as is the way to serve it.”

What’s In Your Pint?

I tend to put beer in my pint glasses, but some people see the world differently and put other thing in them. Amphibian keepers at the Slimbridge Wetland Centre, Gloucestershire have raised eleven poison dart frogs in pint glasses, filled with, you guessed it, Red-bush tea.

The caffeine-free African tea contains fungus-beating antioxidants, according to amphibian keeper Jay Redmond. Mr Redmond said: “Every morning just before I made my cup of tea I made sure the tadpoles have had theirs too!”

The yellow-banded and green-banded poison dart frog tadpoles were raised in pint glasses, topped up with the shop-bought red-bush tea, which is sometimes called rooibos. Mr Redmond added: “It is a bit of advice that people know in the industry that to keep them disease-free they should swim in red-bush tea for the first few weeks of life.”