Profits raised from Costa Coffee’s inaugural National Foundation Day, held over the weekend in its 700 UK stores, were donated to the Costa Foundation. The registered charity was set up by Costa Coffee in 2006 to help to build schools and improve the lives of coffee growing communities around the world. Costa customers helped to raise £150,000 on Saturday 14 June which will now help build three new schools in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Uganda. “We wanted to give something back to the communities where we source our coffee and local farmers have specifically told us that the best way Costa can help is by focusing on education through building schools for their children," David Hutchinson, Costa Coffee Marketing Director and Costa Foundation Trustee, said. Since 2006, the Costa Foundation has improved sanitation, developed land for families to grow crops, built teacher accommodation and built four schools in Colombia, Uganda and Ethiopia.

(Carlo Odello)

Costa and OJSC Rosinter Restaurants Holding “Rosinter” have opened today Costa’s 1,000th store in Moscow’s Pushkin Square. The opening of this store marks the arrival of Costa Coffee in Russia.
Costa is the UK’s largest and fastest growing coffee shop chain and plans to open its 700th milestone UK store next month. It now operates over 300 stores overseas in 22 countries (Europe, the Middle East, China and India). Rosinter is the leading casual dining restaurant chain in Russia and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), operating 216 restaurants in 8 countries and 24 cities. The new joint venture, formed in December 2007, plans to open 200 Costa stores in Russia over the next 5 years, focusing on Moscow and St Petersburg in its first year, then expanding to other Russian regions thereafter. The partners’ initial investment is approximately 10 million dollars USA and they also intend to open Costa stores in Ukraine and Belarus at a later date. After the first opening, 11 coffee shops currently operated by Rosinter under its proprietary brand Moka Loka will be converted to the Costa brand.
Over 50% of the 11 million people in Moscow visit coffee shops regularly and to date. There is a wealthy demographic of young Russians whose average income is growing by 16% per annum. Increasingly, they are spending a higher proportion of their disposable income in coffee shops.

(Carlo Odello)