As stated in this article, Keurig’s Green Mountain Coffee has recently been sued by Canada’s Club Coffee for 600 million dollars for allegedly engaging in anti-competitive measures to keep their monopoly in the single serve coffee market. Because of Keurig’s monopoly, single serve coffee prices are artificially high.

This is where competitors’ Canada’s Club Coffee and Rogers Family co. come in. Both of these companies offer alternative coffee pods which also fit into Keurig’s machine but market at a significantly lower price. Keurig’s new product, the Keurig 2.0, uses lockout technology which only responds to Keurig licensed k-packs. This new technology excludes competitors from selling their own versions of coffee pods, forcing consumers to pay more for their self serve coffee by purchasing only Keurig brand packs.

If Canada’s Club Coffee loses the lawsuit with Keurig, they will be forced to find an alternative machine to produce their coffee. In efforts to counteract this deficit, an option for Canada’s Club Coffee is to begin producing their own self-serve coffee machine to be sold at a lower price than the Keurig 2.0. A more affordable version of the Keurig would be a better option for low income coffee drinkers, and save competitors from going out of business.