JDE Peet's

JDE Peet's is an American-Dutch company that owns beverage brands, mostly of coffee, tea and hot chocolate. It was formed in 2015 following the merger of the coffee division of Mondelez International with Douwe Egberts as Jacobs Douwe Egberts. The stock of JDE Peet's is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange.

JDE Peet's

Type	Naamloze vennootschap
Traded as	Euronext Amsterdam: JDEP
Industry	Beverages
Founded	2015; 8 years ago (2015)
Headquarters	Amsterdam, Netherlands
Key people	Fabien Simon (CEO) Olivier Goudet (chairman)
Revenue	€7.0 billion (2021)
Operating income	€1.1 billion (2021)
Net income	€762 million (2021)
Total assets	€21.6 billion (2021)
Total equity	€11.2 billion (2021)
Number of employees	19,621 (end 2021)
Website	www.jdepeets.com
Footnotes / references ^[1]

History

 

The original Douwe Egberts shop, The White Ox in Joure, the Netherlands, now a museum

Beginnings

The company has its origins in De Witte Os, a general grocery shop that Egbert Douwes established in 1753 in Joure, Frisia, the Netherlands. In 1780, the company was transferred to his eldest son Douwe Egberts. It developed into a company dealing in coffee, tea, and tobacco. By 1925 it had changed its name to Douwe Egberts (as in Douwe, the son of Egbert), and had introduced the red seal as its logo.^[2]

International expansions

In 1948, the company began to sell its products in Belgium, followed by France, Spain and Denmark. It founded a new holding company, Douwe Egberts Koninklijke ("Royal Douwe Egberts") in 1968, and a year later took over the Dutch coffee manufacturer Kanis & Gunnink.

The company expanded through Europe, acquiring other tea, coffee and tobacco companies, such as the UK tea distributor Horniman's Tea.

Sara Lee

In 1978 Douwe Egberts was taken over by Consolidated Foods Corporation, later the Sara Lee Corporation. In 1989, Douwe Egberts purchased Van Nelle, its main Dutch competitor in coffee, tea and tobacco. It sold its tobacco interests, including Van Nelle and Drum rolling tobacco, to Imperial Tobacco in 1998.^[3]

In 2001, the company collaborated with Philips to produce the Senseo coffee maker. The following year it established the Douwe Egberts Foundation, an independent entity that initiates and manages coffee and tea projects in countries of origin.

Douwe Egberts sued the province of Groningen in 2007 over the introduction of rules stating that all coffee supplied in the province must meet fair trade criteria set by Stichting Max Havelaar. Courts ruled in favour of the province of Groningen.

With profits from the coffee division under threat from rivals such as Nestlé and Kraft, and being unable to find a buyer, in 2012 Sara Lee split off the coffee division into D.E Master Blenders 1753, offering share-holders one share in the new company for each main share they held.^[4][5] The main Sara Lee company changed its name to Hillshire Brands.^[6]

D.E to Mondelez

In 2012 Douwe Egberts became an independent Dutch company again, trading under the name D.E Master Blenders 1753 NV.^[7]

In 2013, the German investor group JAB Holding Company made an offer to purchase D.E Master Blenders 1753 for $9.8 billion.^[8] The company appointed a new management and delisted the company from the Euronext stock market. D.E. Master Blenders 1753 later bought Norway's Kaffehuset Friele coffee manufacturer.^[9]

In May 2014 the company announced plans to merge with the coffee division of American food conglomerate Mondelez International.^[10] The merger received approval from the European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager on 5 May 2015, subject to several conditions.^[11] These included a requirement that Merrild and Carte Noire brands were sold (now owned by competitor Luigi Lavazza S.p.A.), and that the Senseo brand in Austria was licensed to a competitor Luigi Lavazza S.p.A.

Merger with Peet’s Coffee and IPO

Jacobs Douwe Egberts merged with Peet's Coffee, another coffee business owned by JAB Holding, to form JDE Peet's which would own the Peet's chain, as well as brands including: Jacobs Coffee, Douwe Egberts, Moccona, Super Coffee, Owl Coffee, OldTown White Coffee, Kenco and Pickwick, and brewing systems including Senseo and Tassimo.^[12] The company was listed in Amsterdam in May 2020.^[13]

Continued Business in Russia

JDE Peet's chose to continue doing business in Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The company's CEO cited three reasons for staying in Russia: (1) coffee and tea are essential products, (2) to protect local employees in the country, and (3) the company's intellectual property would be seized if it left Russia.^[14]

Brands

Brands owned by the company include:

• Café HAG
• Campos Coffee^[15]
• Douwe Egberts (ground and instant coffee; also Douwe Egberts Coffee Systems and Coffee Care, a drinks supply)
  • DE Karaván
  • DE Omnia
  • DE Paloma
• Friele (Norway)
• Gevalia (Sweden)
• Horniman's Tea
• Jacobs
• Kenco
• Marcilla (Spain)^[16]
• Maxwell House (outside North America)
• Moccona (instant coffee)
• OldTown White Coffee (Malaysia)
• Pickwick tea
• Senseo (coffee-pads for a coffee-maker, in conjunction with Philips)
• Splendid^[17]
• Tassimo
• Tea Forte

References

1. "JDE Peet's N.V. 2021 Annual Report" (PDF). JDE Peet's N.V. pp. 82, 87, 133, 135. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
2. "Heritage". demasterblenders1753.com.
3. "Sara Lee to Sell Tobacco Unit for $1.1 Billion". Los Angeles Times. 8 April 1998.
4. Emily Bryson York (28 January 2011). "Sara Lee to split into two businesses". Los Angeles Times.
5. "Sara Lee coffee spinoff D.E Master Blenders starts trading". Chicago Tribune. Reuters. 12 June 2012.
6. "Investor FAQs". Hillshire Brands.
7. Dutch Coffee Brewer Coming Home May Give Jolt to Exchange, Maud van Gaal and Maaike Noordhuis (for Bloomberg), San Francisco Chronicle, June 12, 2012
8. Mark Scott (12 April 2013). "Benckiser to Buy D.E Master Blenders for $9.8 Billion". The New York Times.
9. Company News, DEMB1753, Amsterdam.Accessed: 18 January 2014.
10. "DE and Mondelez merge". nu.nl (in Dutch). 7 May 2014. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
11. "Brussels agrees with merger". nu.nl (in Dutch). 5 May 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
12. Maze, Jonathan (17 December 2019). "Jacobs Douwe Egberts to merge with Peet's and explore an IPO". Restaurant Business. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
13. "Peet's Coffee IPO Raises $2.5 Billion". Bloomberg. 29 May 2020. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
14. Chaudhuri, Saabira (18 Aug 2023). "Why This Coffee Giant Is Staying Put in Russia". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 Aug 2023.
15. "Sydney roastery Campos Coffee snapped up by Dutch giant JDE Peet's". 16 June 2021.
16. "Sobre Marcilla" (in Spanish). Retrieved 31 August 2018.
17. "La scheda del Caffè Splendid ora di Jacobs Douwe Egberts" [Splendid coffee details, now it belongs to Jacobs Douwe Egberts] (in Italian). 12 January 2016. Retrieved 23 September 2016.

• Chin, Joseph (2017-12-11). "Dutch company launches takeover of OldTown for RM1.47b". The Star. Retrieved 2023-08-01.

External links

• Official website