US office refreshment provider, Corporate Essentials, has decided to end its nearly 20-year distribution agreement with Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. (KGM) and offer Keurig K-Cup compatible products, including Mother Parkers’ RealCup brand single serve capsules.
Office Coffee Service providers like Corporate Essentials, who are authorized to sell the Keurig brand, are required to only provide customers Keurig K-Cup KGM -licensed products due to the terms of their Keurig Authorized Distributor agreement.
“When the first Keurig K-Cup patents expired in 2012 and rogue ‘K-Cups’ flooded the market, our clients inquired about them,” said Judson Kleinman, president/CEO and founder of Corporate Essentials.
“And even though our clients regularly requested these products for their homes and offices, we respected and honored the terms of our agreement, only offering Keurig K-Cup licensed products. But with new innovation and higher-quality products in the single-cup market, we decided it was time to make a change in order to provide the best options for our clients.”
Corporate Essentials’ first post-Keurig partnership is with Canadian-based Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee Inc., which developed and manufactures the Keurig K-Cup compatible RealCup brand solution for coffee and tea brands including Tim Hortons Coffee, Marley Coffee, Brown Gold coffees, Higgins & Burke, Numi and China Mist teas.
Without restrictions on the types of products that can be offered to clients, Corporate Essentials will also be able to reach beyond the relationship with Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee to offer a wide variety of single serve capsule products.
“I have to be honest, when one of our clients asks for a new coffee with the name of a TV chef or other coffee celebrity, it will feel good to say: ‘sure we can get that for you!” added Kleinman.
In addition to offering RealCup™ brand products and other non-licensed single serve capsules to more than 1,500 corporate clients in New York City and New Jersey, the products will be made available through Corporate Essentials’ website www.shoffee.com, which currently serves more than 50,000 homes.
