Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. and The Coca‑Cola Company Expand Agreement to the Keurig Hot Brewing System

09-03-2014

WATERBURY, Vt. and ATLANTA, Sept. 3, 2014 – Keurig Green Mountain, Inc., (Keurig) (NASDAQ: GMCR), a leader in specialty coffee, coffee makers, teas and other beverages with its innovative brewing technology, and The Coca‑Cola Company (NYSE: KO) have expanded the companies’ innovative partnership to offer select beverages from the portfolio of The Coca‑Cola Company’s still brands in the Keurig® hot brewing system in the United States and Canada. Honest Tea®, the nation’s #1 organic bottled iced tea, will be the first brand from The Coca‑Cola Company available in K-Cup® packs.  

In February 2014, the companies signed a 10-year agreement to collaborate on the development and introduction of The Coca‑Cola Company's global brand portfolio for use in Keurig’s forthcoming Keurig Cold™ at-home beverage system, available in Keurig’s fiscal year 2015.  As part of that agreement Coca‑Cola acquired a 10% minority equity position in Keurig and subsequently announced its intention to increase its stake up to 16%.

“As we began to collaborate with The Coca‑Cola Company on the development of their brands for our Keurig Cold system, the opportunity to incorporate certain Coca‑Cola brands, like Honest Tea, into our Brew Over Ice selections for our Keurig hot brewing system became an exciting possibility,” said Mark Wood, Senior Vice President, Global Hot Systems at Keurig. “Whether hot or cold, adding great brands like Honest Tea to the Keurig system is a part of our ongoing mission to provide consumers with unparalleled choice and variety.”

Available to consumers in the U.S. tomorrow on Keurig.com, the new Honest Tea® K-Cup® packs feature two products initially, unsweetened Just Green and Just Black iced teas. The new beverages will join Keurig’s current Brew Over Ice collection, a line specially crafted to brew hot beverages over ice with the Keurig® hot brewing system, making it easy and convenient to get a refreshing iced beverage at home or in the office.

“There is growing consumer demand for beverage variety and functionality,” said Deryck Van Rensburg, President, Coca‑Cola/Keurig Ventures.  “Offering people more of the brands they love in the popular Keurig hot brewing system is a natural extension of our strategic partnership while development of our sparkling and still brands for the innovative Keurig Cold at-home system continues.”  The Honest Tea K-Cup® packs, like all of the brand’s teas, will be organic certified using Fair Trade Certified™ tea. Founded in 1998, Honest Tea was the first brand to launch organic bottled tea and fair trade bottled tea.

“Keurig Green Mountain and Honest Tea share a longstanding commitment to organics and fair trade,” said Seth Goldman, Honest Tea co-founder and TeaEO. “We’re excited to make our tea available in this new convenient format.”

Keurig® hot system brewers use innovative brewing technology to deliver a fresh-brewed, perfect single cup of hot or brewed over ice coffee, tea, cocoa, or fruit brews every time at just the touch of a button. With the launch of the next generation Keurig® 2.0 brewer, consumers are able to brew both a single cup and a carafe of coffee from a Keurig® brand pack. With Keurig 2.0 brewing systems, consumers continue to get the same Keurig quality, simplicity and beverage choice they expect with more than 50 brands and more than 290 beverage varieties currently available, all brewed with Keurig’s new beverage-optimizing brewing technology.   

About Keurig Green Mountain, Inc.

As a leader in specialty coffee, coffee makers, teas and other beverages, Keurig Green Mountain (Keurig) (NASDAQ: GMCR), is recognized for its award-winning beverages, innovative Keurig® brewing technology, and socially responsible business practices. The Company has inspired consumer passion for its products by revolutionizing beverage preparation at home and in the workplace. Keurig supports local and global communities by investing in sustainably-grown coffee and by its active involvement in a variety of social and environmental projects. By helping consumers drink for themselves, we believe we can brew a better world. For more information visit: www.KeurigGreenMountain.com. To purchase Keurig® products visit: www.Keurig.com or www.Keurig.ca.

Keurig routinely posts information that may be of importance to investors in the Investor Relations section of its website, www.KeurigGreenMountain.com, including news releases and its complete financial statements, as filed with the SEC. The Company encourages investors to consult this section of its website regularly for important information and news. Additionally, by subscribing to the Company's automatic email news release delivery, individuals can receive news directly from Keurig as it is released.

Keurig Green Mountain Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information in this filing constitutes "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. They often include words such as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "intends," "plans," "seeks" or words of similar meaning, or future or conditional verbs, such as "will," "should," "could," "may," "aims," "intends," or "projects." However, the absence of these words or similar expressions does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. These statements may relate to: the expected impact of raw material costs and our pricing actions on our results of operations and gross margins, expected trends in net sales and earnings performance and other financial measures, the expected productivity and working capital improvements, the success of introducing and producing new product offerings, the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations, the adequacy of internally generated funds and existing sources of liquidity, such as the availability of bank financing, the expected results of operations of businesses acquired by us, our ability to issue debt or additional equity securities, our expectations regarding purchasing shares of our common stock under the existing authorizations, projections of payment of dividends, and the impact of the inquiry initiated by the SEC and any related litigation or additional governmental inquiry or enforcement proceedings. A forward-looking statement is neither a prediction nor a guarantee of future events or circumstances, and those future events or circumstances may not occur. Management believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonable as and when made. However, caution should be taken not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements because such statements speak only as of the date when made. We expressly disclaim any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. In addition, forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our Company's historical experience and our present expectations or projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those described in Part I, "Item 1A. Risk Factors," and Part II "Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in our fiscal 2013 Annual Report filed on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About The Coca‑Cola Company

The Coca‑Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is the world's largest beverage company, refreshing consumers with more than 500 sparkling and still brands. Led by Coca‑Cola, one of the world's most valuable and recognizable brands, our Company's portfolio features 17 billion-dollar brands including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Coca‑Cola Zero, vitaminwater, Powerade, Minute Maid, Simply, Georgia and Del Valle. Globally, we are the No. 1 provider of sparkling beverages, ready-to-drink coffees, and juices and juice drinks.  Through the world's largest beverage distribution system, consumers in more than 200 countries enjoy our beverages at a rate of 1.9 billion servings a day.  With an enduring commitment to building sustainable communities, our Company is focused on initiatives that reduce our environmental footprint, support active, healthy living, create a safe, inclusive work environment for our associates, and enhance the economic development of the communities where we operate.  Together with our bottling partners, we rank among the world's top 10 private employers with more than 700,000 system associates.  For more information, visit www.coca-colacompany.com, follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/CocaColaCo, or find us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/the-coca-cola-company.

The Coca‑Cola Company Forward Looking Statements 

This press release may contain statements, estimates or projections that constitute “forward-looking statements” as defined under U.S. federal securities laws. Generally, the words “believe,” “expect,” “intend,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” “project,” “will” and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, which generally are not historical in nature.  Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from The Coca‑Cola Company’s historical experience and our present expectations or projections.  These risks include, but are not limited to, obesity concerns; water scarcity and poor quality; evolving consumer preferences; increased competition and capabilities in the market place; product safety and quality concerns; increased demand for food products and decreased agricultural productivity; changes in the retail landscape or the loss of key retail or foodservice customers; an inability to expand operations in emerging and developing markets; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; interest rate increases; an inability to maintain good relationships with our bottling partners; a deterioration in our bottling partners' financial condition; increases in income tax rates, changes in income tax laws or unfavorable resolution of tax matters; increased or new indirect taxes in the United States or in other major markets; increased cost, disruption of supply or shortage of energy or fuels; increased cost, disruption of supply or shortage of ingredients, other raw materials or packaging materials; changes in laws and regulations relating to beverage containers and packaging; significant additional labeling or warning requirements or limitations on the availability of our products; an inability to protect our information systems against service interruption, misappropriation of data or breaches of security; unfavorable general economic conditions in the United States; unfavorable economic and political conditions in international markets; litigation or legal proceedings; adverse weather conditions; climate change; damage to our brand image and corporate reputation from negative publicity, even if unwarranted, related to product safety or quality, human and workplace rights, obesity or other issues, even if unwarranted; changes in, or failure to comply with, the laws and regulations applicable to our products or our business operations; changes in accounting standards; an inability to achieve our overall long-term growth objectives; deterioration of global credit market conditions; one or more of our counterparty financial institutions default on their obligations to us or fail; an inability to realize additional benefits targeted by our productivity and reinvestment program; an inability to renew collective bargaining agreements on satisfactory terms, or we or our bottling partners experience strikes, work stoppages or labor unrest; future impairment charges; multi-employer plan withdrawal liabilities in the future; an inability to successfully integrate and manage our Company-owned or -controlled bottling operations; global or regional catastrophic events; and other risks discussed in our Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013, which filing is available from the SEC.  You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made.  The Coca‑Cola Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

KGM-G, KGM-US, KGM-CA

Related Content