The 3 Biggest Coffee Chains in the World: The Holy Trinity

While some of the top beverage chains for the Indian market include Cafe Coffee Day, Barista, and Chaayos, the situation on a worldwide scale is very different. These top three coffee chains originated in the three largest coffee-consuming countries on earth, but they have since expanded their wings to rank among the top coffee chains worldwide. Starbucks, Costa Coffee, and McCafé are all available in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, respectively. The three listed coffee franchises are the biggest ones now operating on a global scale.

Starbucks

Alfred Peet, a businessman who specialises in coffee roasting, gave three university fellows—English professor Jerry Baldwin, history professor Zev Siegl, and author Gordon Bowker—the idea to create a coffee shop. Peet had no idea that less than ten years later, they would buy him out. On March 3, 1971, in Seattle, Washington, Starbucks was established. The title was derived from the initial mate’s name in Moby Dick, and the twin-tailed mermaid, a siren in Greek tales, who has since become a central figure in millennial culture, gave it credibility.
The schoolteachers sold Starbucks to Howard Schultz in 1987 when it gained a reputation, and Schultz changed the name to Starbucks with the intention of growing. A total of 46 stores have entered the Northwestern and Midwestern American markets by 1989.
Starbucks had 140 locations when it went public and launched an IPO on the stock market. 1992 was at the time. The largest coffee chain in the world, Starbucks, with more than 284,000 outlets across the globe as of 2019. Starbucks coffee is sometimes seen as the leading example of the “Second wave coffee” movement, which helped make artisanal coffee, especially the dark roasted kind, more generally available. According to Forbes, Starbucks is anticipated to reach additional growth from here because the entire world is in love with their beverages.
Prices for a Starbucks franchise start at USD 315,000.

Costa Coffee

The Costa Brothers of London were also racking their heads as the concept for Starbucks was being developed in America. Sometime in the 1960s, Sergei and Bruno Costa and their families relocated from Parma, Italy, to England. In order to create a successful family business, they opened a roastery in 1971 that went by the name of Costa Coffee. In 1978, they finally opened a serving coffee shop in London’s Vauxhall Bridge Road after initially mainly servicing neighbourhood vendors. When it had 41 locations in the UK by 1995, Whitbread, the country’s largest hospitality company, bought it.
Ironically, the American beverage juggernaut The Coca-Cola Company purchased this British coffee chain in 2019 for a staggering 4.9 billion USD. When it was acquired, Costa Coffee had 3,401 locations in 31 nations.
The cost of a Costa Coffee franchise is £250,000 or $320,000.

McCafe

The largest QSR company in the world, McDonald’s, owned the Australian chain McCaf. It was introduced in 1993 by McDonalds Licensee Ann Brown in Melbourne in response to the expanding espresso coffee fad. It was adopted after Charlie Bell, the CEO of McDonald’s, gave his support.
The concept caught on rather quickly as independent stores began to appear. In order to establish a balance between the food and beverages, several of the existing McDonald’s locations were converted into McCafés, and the menus were combined.
McCaf has more than 5000 locations worldwide, including more than 1000 locations in Australia and 900+ in Germany. In addition to that, but McCafé has also been crucial in improving McDonalds’ total sales.
The private café costs begin lower, at USD 250,000, but the franchising system is comparable to those of McDonald’s.