The Single-Cup Coffee Maker Battles: Has Keurig Won?

Nearly seven years ago, I described the competition between Keurig and Tassimo here. For a number of very good reasons, I suggested then that if this is a winner-take-all competition, Keurig would be likely to win it. It still looks that way from my perspective as the variety of disks available for Tassimo continues to diminish, as does the shelf space for both their disks and their machines.

[Edited update in light of the info below] It turns out that I was right (for Canada, at least), but even so, (as is the case for so many economists' predictions) my timing was off. Way off.

However, it does look as if Tassimo is gasping it's last breath:

SO WHAT IS THE ACTUAL TRUTH, ARE TASSIMO DISCONTINUING THEIR COFFEE MACHINE SALES IN CANADA?

According to the below tweet from Tassimo Canada, it would appear that they have discontinued sales of Tassimo machines in Canada.

 

Kirk G

 

@KiloKirk

·

Feb 23, 2019

 

Replying to

@TASSIMOCanada

and

@MFriedenthal

Why is their no brewers for sale any more in any BC Canada ?

 

 

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TASSIMO Canada

 

@TASSIMOCanada

·

Feb 25, 2019

 

Hi Kirk, we're sorry we've discontinued selling Tassimo brewers in Canada, there weren't enough consumers buying them to support production. Thank you for your interest in Tassimo, good day!

So there you have it, Tassimo have pulled the plug in Canada, following poor sales. 

 

 

 

 

We have a Tassimo coffee maker. What will we do about this?

• Probably stock up on the disks we like.
• Eventually switch to Keurig (or Nespresso?)

Why did Tassimo lose? Here's what I wrote back then:

[O]ver time, Tassimo might well fade unless they do several things:

1. license other brand names to manufacture and distribute Tassimo-compatible machines.
2. develop methods for people to fill their own disks with their own coffee blends.
3. Aggressively seek even more licensing with additional major coffee brands.
4. And this one is minor but a constant annoyance: print the type of coffee on the top of each box. In the second photo above [in the original post], you can see that I have written the name of what is inside on the top of the box. Doing so is a nuisance that could be readily solved by printing the name there as the boxes are printed and assembled.

 

 

[O]ver time, Tassimo might well fade unless they do several things:

1. license other brand names to manufacture and distribute Tassimo-compatible machines.
2. develop methods for people to fill their own disks with their own coffee blends.
3. Aggressively seek even more licensing with additional major coffee brands.
4. And this one is minor but a constant annoyance: print the type of coffee on the top of each box. In the second photo above [in the original post], you can see that I have written the name of what is inside on the top of the box. Doing so is a nuisance that could be readily solved by printing the name there as the boxes are printed and assembled.