Equal Exchange Blog ... "Nesting Dolls: JAB Holdings Buys Panera"

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Nesting Dolls: JAB Holdings Buys Panera

At the beginning of April, the world’s largest coffee conglomerate, JAB Holdings, bought Panera Bread and its 2,000 cafés across the U.S. You may not know JAB by name, but the Luxembourg-based holding company has been the biggest player in the industry since 2015. It already owns majority stakes in Caribou Coffee Company, Keurig Green Mountain, and Peet’s Coffee and Tea. Peet’s, in turn, owns the smaller high-end coffee chains Intelligentsia and Stumptown.

This nesting dolls effect – a brand being swallowed up by bigger and bigger companies, distorting what was once familiar – isn’t just a trend in coffee ...

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