Club Coffee, an Ontario coffee roaster and grinder is suing Keurig Green Mountain, an American coffee giant in a $600 million lawsuit. With Keurig controlling approximately 90% of the single serve coffee pods market, Club Coffee believes that the U.S. company is violating laws to maintain a monopoly and keep prices unreasonably high.

Keurig has recently released new brewers that deny single serve pods not manufactured by them. This lockout technology forces retailers to exclusively sell Keurig controlled products only, according to a Club Coffee spokesperson. Previously, Keurig had machines that worked with other brands of coffee pods but that design ceased to exist in their new brewers after 2012.

Food industry analyst Robert Carter says that the market for single serve coffee pods is one of the fastest growing markets in Canada. Approximately 40% of all Canadians have single serve coffee machines and Canada spent $95 million on them last year alone. With the belief that Keurig’s anti-competitive behavior is forcing higher prices since their increased retail price of 9%, Club Coffee states that Keurig’s business practices are hurting other similar companies, as well as the wallets of consumers.

Club Coffee considers itself to be one of the leading no name brand coffees; they manufacture “soft pods” that make coffee with fully biodegradable cups. The Canadian company uses bio resins instead of plastics pods to promote environmental sustainability.

Like guest speaker Mahesh Nagarajan was saying in class the other day, when people start referring to a product type by a company name (like how soda was referred to as Coca Cola in India), it is clear that a single company dominates the wholesale market that they specialize in. As an avid coffee enthusiast myself, I refer to my single serve coffee brewer as “a Keurig”, rather than a coffee brewer. With fierce competition determined to end Keurig’s reign in the coffee brewer market, I am interested in seeing if Keurig will remain at the top.

When a spokesperson from Keurig Green Mountain was asked to comment on the lawsuit, they stated that “the company could not comment on the complaint because they’ve yet to see it.”

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