Starbucks Out, Tim Hortons In?

Supermarket giant Safeway announced today that they will be pulling Starbucks kiosks out of 4 of their locations to test the famously Canadian Tim Hortons Brand instead.

2 locations in Calgary (Kensington & Castleridge) will be the first to make the transition this December, with the Callingwood location in Edmonton and the Transcona store in Winnipeg to follow shortly after.

Safeway has not said how long the test will be for before they convert the other locations or pull out the Tim's test stores.

Currently, the employees who run the Starbucks kiosks are direct employees of Canada Safeway, and will remain so with the brand changes.

From a consumer perspective, it is a smart idea, as most Western Canadian Tim Hortons locations frequently experience long line ups due to popularity. Also, Tims lower priced coffee will most likely be a boon to shoppers.

Number Crunching

Canada Safeway

Number of Safeway Locations in Canada: 222

Number of Safeway Canada Locations with a Starbucks located within: 168

Unusual Safeway Factoid: In the late 1970s, Safeway controlled nearly 80% of the Alberta grocery market, causing the Alberta government to launch an investigation into potential price fixing and/or price gouging of consumers

Tim Hortons

Number of Tims Locations in Canada: 3,040

Amount of Canadian coffee market held by Tim Hortons: 76% (1st place nationally)

Unusual Tim Hortons Factoid: By 2002, Tim Hortons overtook McDonald's both in the number of locations, and yearly sales revenues in Canada.

Starbucks

*Number of Starbucks Locations in Canada: 785 company operated stores & 266 "licensed concept stores". Grand Total: 1,051

*Amount of Canadian coffee market held by Starbucks: 7% (2nd place nationally)

*These numbers count only Starbucks branded stores. These numbers do not count the Seattle's Best brand (also owned by Starbucks) which is sold in various chains and stores, such as Mac's convenience stores.

Unusual Starbucks Factoid: In 1999, Starbucks covertly opened a number of eateries in the San Francisco Bay area under the name of Circadia. Unfortunately, the experiment didn't stay secret for very long. As word got out that the eateries were actually owned by Starbucks, they soon converted into Starbucks Cafes.