Caffe Nero Snorts 10 Espressos Before Declaring Itself ‘the Waitrose of Coffee’

To beat the competition, make coffee and analogise

High street coffee chain Caffe Nero — the company that tried to make the espresso and tonic happen in the mainstream — has thrown out a gambit to its competition: Which supermarket do you most represent? As part of a marketing drive for its new food range in MCA, Nero chief executive Will Stratton-Morris has declared his company ‘the Waitrose of coffee,’ presumably in the belief that the analogy cements some kind of premium edge against Starbucks, Costa, and the rest. But then — who is Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer, Aldi, Lidl? Waitrose has coffee machines in its stores, so does the analogy even hold? What goes beyond Waitrose, for London’s various, excellent coffee shops? Isn’t analogising like this a lazy way of performing analysis anyway? [MCA]

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