Starbucks Seems Almost Giddy About Its Verismo Machines

Starbucks made its big entrance to the single-serve coffee market with its Verismo machine in October.

In fiscal Q1, Starbucks sold more than 150,000 Verismos, according to the company.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz seems really psyched — at least that's what he sounded like on the Q1 conference call with analysts.

Schultz stated that Starbucks plans to use the Verismo to be a "global leader" in the segment at least three times during the call.

"We remain committed to attaining leadership in the single-serve category, and I can tell you today that with Verismo we are in the nascent stage of building a multi-billion dollar platform for Starbucks over the long term," said Schultz. "And we are in it for the long term."

"I think it’s very important that you all understand that we are deeply, deeply committed to becoming the leader in this space domestically and internationally," Schultz told the analysts.

"Our commitment, our interest, our motivation to build on single-serve and build on Verismo is 100 percent and we are going to maintain a high level of commitment and investment in this, where we are going to be the global leader, " he continued.

So, how's Starbucks going to grow the Verismo?

Starbucks president of channel development and emerging brands Jeff Hansberry outlined what Starbucks has defined as "growth drivers" for the product — helpfully transcribed by Seeking Alpha:

So there are really three things that are going to be growth drivers for Verismo as we step forward. First, and importantly, the innovation itself. It’s the first and only machine that does brewed coffee, espresso, and lattes. And that message got through to customers during the holiday.

And secondly, as we add innovation to the system, whether it’s through additional coffees, additional espressos, additional Starbucks latte and seasonal favorite beverages, as well as tea, that will add to increase the interest in the platform.

And then finally, from a machine standpoint, we have a pipeline, to Howard’s point, multi years of machine innovation, that adds new features, new styles, new functionality, to a whole series of machines that we will be introducing.

We tasted the lattes from Starbucks' Verismo before it was launched. Check out what the newsroom thought about them here.

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