Two weeks ago the story was demand — specialty crossing 48% of American adults, NBA money piling into RTD, the record still setting itself. This week is the mirror image. The demand is still there, but the legacy giants are reshaping themselves around it: Starbucks closed another 250 stores, Jollibee ceded control of the coffee brand it spent 13 years building, and a UAE fund took 70% of the most talked-about specialty chain in Turkey. Meanwhile a British sausage-roll bakery quietly became the country’s biggest branded coffee operator, and the C market slid to a three-month low. It’s the week the shape of the industry changed hands. Here are the seven that mattered.
1. Starbucks Closes Another 250 North American Cafes
On September 24, Starbucks confirmed the closure of roughly 250 underperforming stores across North America and disclosed approximately $300 million in restructuring charges tied to the wind-down. Roughly 900 jobs go with the shutters. About $200 million of the charge is cash — lease-exit costs and employee separation benefits — with the remaining $100 million booked as non-cash write-downs on store assets.
In a note to employees, Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams said, “Some coffeehouses continue to underperform despite the hard work and commitment of all of you.” The company said it aims to transfer displaced baristas to nearby stores where possible and offer severance to anyone who leaves. The 250 stores represent about 1% of Starbucks’ ~18,000-cafe North American footprint.
This is CEO Brian Niccol’s second round of cafe reductions since he took the top job in September 2024, and it sits inside the “Back to Starbucks” plan the board authorised in September 2025 for roughly $1 billion in total restructuring costs (about $150M in employee separations, $400M in store asset disposals, $450M in accelerated lease costs). Niccol has separately trimmed some 2,000 corporate roles and is targeting $2 billion in total cost cuts by end of fiscal 2028. New-store expansion, per the company, now leans international.
The Q3 comp turnaround we flagged in early August was real. This week is the reminder that the flip side of a comp recovery is closing the stores that never should have been open.
The takeaway: if you manage or barista at one of Starbucks’ ~18,000 North American cafes, this is not a broad layoff cycle — it’s a targeted pruning of the tail. The bigger read for the industry: Starbucks’ growth engine is now international, not domestic. That is not neutral for US independent operators. Every store the corporation stops opening on a US corner is a lease and a labor pool that a local roaster can pick up. Watch the closure list when it publishes — those addresses are your next real-estate opportunity.
2. Arabica Cracks to a Three-Month Low as StoneX Calls a 10M-Bag Surplus
The slide we’ve been tracking since early September broke through this week. The December 2026 ICE arabica contract opened Monday with a small rally, gave it all back Tuesday on a −685-point session, and ground lower through Wednesday and Thursday before a partial Friday recovery. Perfect Daily Grind’s Sep 25 recap flagged arabica at a three-month low. On the September 22 close, December arabica sat around 276.4 US cents/lb, down 4.1 cents for the day.
The macro driver is now unambiguous. StoneX Specialty Coffee is calling the global coffee market to swing to a 10-million-bag surplus in 2026 — up from a 1.8-million-bag surplus in 2025 — and the USDA is projecting Brazil’s 2026/27 harvest at a record 71.9 million 60kg bags, a 14% year-on-year rise, with arabica alone up 25% to 47.5 million bags. Brazilian September exports are running 34% ahead of a year ago. ICE certified arabica stocks added 10,528 bags Friday Sep 18 to reach 258,415 bags — still ~400,000 bags below the same date in 2025, but climbing.
The takeaway: if you were still pricing your 2027 buying desk on a $3.20 arabica handle, this is the week that assumption dies. StoneX’s surplus call is not a whisper. Roasters who locked in high-cost lots in Q1–Q2 2026 are staring at real mark-to-market pain; roasters who’ve stayed short and nimble are looking at their best margin window since 2023. Whichever camp you’re in, the Q4 wholesale price-sheet conversation with your accounts needs to happen now, not in January. And if you’re a green trader with East African origin exposure, remember that a Brazil surplus does not fix the Bab el-Mandeb freight problem — the C market can slide while your Ethiopian delivered cost stays sticky.
3. Jollibee Hands Highlands Coffee Back to Its Founder for $88M
On September 24, Filipino restaurant group Jollibee Foods Corp. disclosed that its wholly-owned JSF Investments Pte. Ltd. had signed a share-purchase agreement selling an 11% stake in Highlands Coffee parent Jollibee Vietnam to Viet Thai International (VTI) for 2.3 trillion Vietnamese dong — about US$88 million, plus adjustments. VTI is the vehicle of David Thai, the Vietnamese-American who founded Highlands in 1999 and still runs it as CEO.
After close, Jollibee’s stake drops from 60% to 49% and VTI’s rises from 40% to 51% — Thai gets majority control of the business he built. The transaction values the entire Vietnam coffee platform at an implied equity value of $800 million. Highlands operates roughly 800+ cafes across Vietnam and the Philippines and remains the dominant local branded coffee brand in Vietnam — a market where it out-punches Starbucks by store count and cultural fit.
The framing matters. Jollibee flagged “billion-dollar brand” potential for Highlands in early 2026; the fresh valuation prints at $800M pre-adjustment, which is either a soft mark or a bargain depending on which side of the table you’re on. What’s cleaner is the direction of travel: Jollibee is crystallising value in Vietnam and freeing up capital, while the local founder is consolidating control of the crown jewel. It’s a template we’re going to see again: a multinational parent lets the local operator with the deepest brand equity buy back the wheel.
The takeaway: the “strategic multinational + local operator” joint venture structure that dominated Asian coffee in the 2010s is quietly unwinding. For local operators anywhere between Manila and Jakarta with a majority-partner MNC on the cap table — this is a proof-of-concept that buying back control is achievable and that the multinational will often accept a soft valuation to redeploy capital elsewhere. If you’re an operator, this is the deal to email to your board.
4. UAE’s Mair Grabs 70% of Espressolab — First Coffee, First International
On September 24, Abu Dhabi-listed Mair Group signed an agreement to acquire a 70% stake in Eslab, parent of Istanbul-based specialty chain Espressolab. Terms were not disclosed. Espressolab’s founders and existing shareholders keep the remaining 30% and continue to run growth and development. Close is subject to regulatory approvals.
Espressolab is not a small brand. As of August 2026 the chain operates more than 400 stores across 21 markets, including 310+ in more than 50 Turkish cities. Founded in 2014, it runs the full stack: sourcing, roasting, product procurement, franchise licensing, and both retail and digital sales.
Two things are new here. First: this is Mair Group’s first international acquisition since it listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange in December 2024 — and its first coffee investment. UAE sovereign-adjacent capital showed up hard in coffee this quarter (Mubadala’s $1B into Luckin in mid-September; Mair into Espressolab now). Second: Espressolab has spent the last three years positioning itself as Turkey’s answer to Blue Bottle/Blank Street — branded specialty with a design sensibility — and it’s the design layer as much as the store count that Mair is buying.
The takeaway: Gulf capital is going to be the biggest new buyer of coffee assets over the next 24 months. If you’re building a mid-market specialty chain anywhere between Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur, your inbound investor call sheet just got longer — and the check sizes on offer are structurally larger than what most Western PE will write. Get your data room in order. And for baristas and shop leads at Espressolab: the majority-owner reset usually means an expansion push, which typically means promotion opportunities in the next 12 months.
5. Lavazza Launches a Hip-Hop Brand with Pusha T and Pharrell
In New York on September 16, with the media wave carrying through this week, Italian roaster Lavazza and hip-hop icons Pusha T and Pharrell Williams launched Grindin Coffee — a new US-market brand named after Clipse’s 2002 Neptunes-produced hit. The launch events were a morning breakfast at Ludlow House and an evening party at Time Again with DJ sets from Questlove and Jason Stewart. Lavazza CMO Carlo Colpo and Chairman Giuseppe Lavazza attended.
The product: two SKUs at DTC via grindincoffee.com, in ground or whole bean, both filter/espresso/cold-brew compatible. A dark roast sourced from Central and South America and Southeast Asia (cocoa, caramel, brown spice). A medium roast from South America (bittersweet chocolate, caramel, roasted hazelnut). Pusha T’s line for the launch: “Our whole rhythm is create, move, create again. Great coffee is a part of that cycle. Grindin Coffee is for people who are doing something. People who are moving. People who wake up and attack the day.”
The strategic frame is that Lavazza has been public about wanting to grow group revenues to €5 billion (~$5.95B) and has pinpointed the US as its key growth market. This is the group’s first-ever hip-hop collaboration. Coming the same fortnight as Beekeeper Coffee’s NBA cap-table round, it’s the second serious sign that mainstream American attention-economy talent now sees packaged coffee as a category worth building a real brand around.
The takeaway: the shelf war for premium ground coffee in US grocery is about to get louder and more expensive. If you’re a specialty roaster wholesaling into a domestic supermarket account, expect to see marketing dollars from these celebrity-launch brands land right next to you on the shelf. Your defensible moat is provenance, freshness, single-origin storytelling, and named producer relationships — the things a Lavazza-x-Pusha-T blend can’t authentically claim. Lean into the specificity. Vague “premium” positioning is about to get very crowded.
6. Greggs Officially Beats Costa — UK Coffee Ranks Get a New #1
The Allegra World Coffee Portal Project Café UK 2026 report, whose findings gained a fresh media wave the week of September 17–23, confirmed what UK operators had been whispering all year: Greggs now leads the UK branded coffee shop market by outlet count. The scoreboard: Greggs at 2,737 outlets, Costa Coffee at 2,707, Starbucks at 1,424. Greggs opened 34 net new locations in H1 2026 alone and is targeting 100–110 net openings for the full year, with a long-term ceiling of at least 3,500 UK sites.
The macro market frame is worth pausing on. Total UK branded coffee shops now number 12,313 outlets (up 3.5% in 2025) generating £6.8 billion in sales (up 5.5%). Greggs H1 2026 sales printed £1.1 billion, up 7.2% year-on-year. Costa’s 2025 revenue was £1.74 billion, up 3.5%; the chain also reported losses of more than £13 million for 2024, and a rumoured Coca-Cola sale reportedly collapsed after bids came in below expectations.
The uncomfortable read for the specialty tier: this ranking flipped because a bakery chain with £1.20 filter coffee outgrew the “coffee-first” incumbent. Greggs’ wedge was value plus footfall — the meal-deal proposition, aggressive travel/roadside estates, franchise partnerships, and a broadened drinks menu (iced matcha, cold brew) that finally caught up with what customers were already ordering at Blank Street around the corner. Consumers migrated toward non-traditional coffee operators and value; Costa, mid-market and slow to reprice, absorbed the loss.
The takeaway: in a UK market where value + convenience just outranked the legacy coffee-brand promise, independents and small chains have a specific opening. The independent competitive answer is not “cheaper than Greggs” — that’s a fight you lose. It’s craft, sourcing, and third-place: a room worth sitting in, a barista who knows the origin, a rotating single-origin filter. Greggs took the transaction; you can still take the relationship. Denominate your business in loyalty visits, not footfall.
7. Kopi Kenangan Lines Up a $1B IPO
Indonesian coffee chain Kopi Kenangan confirmed this week a secondary share sale by key stakeholders — the typical last-mile move before a public listing — and the reported IPO valuation range is ~$1 billion, with some coverage stretching to $1.4 billion. Singapore is on the shortlist of listing venues. Backers include Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners and Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures.
The financials underpinning the number are real, not vibes. Kopi Kenangan hit its first full year of net profitability in 2025: net revenue reached $184 million (up 45%) with $17 million net profit. In H1 2026 the chain opened 200+ net new outlets across seven markets, with group revenue up 62% year-on-year and Q2 EBITDA up 86%. That is what a coffee IPO story is supposed to look like: growing footprint, growing revenue, and finally growing bottom line at the same time.
For context: Kopi Kenangan pioneered the “grab-and-go premium at kaki-lima pricing” model that has since become the dominant format across Southeast Asia (Cotti, Luckin, Fore, Tomoro all owe it a line in their cap table). The listing, if it prints at $1B, will be the region’s first coffee IPO of that scale and a template for how Kopi Kenangan’s earlier IPO signalling and the wider Southeast Asian pipeline (potentially Fore, potentially Tomoro) get read by Western public markets.
The takeaway: a successful listing at $1B–$1.4B resets the multiples for every mid-scale coffee chain in Southeast Asia, and the next round of Western PE calls into the region will price against Kopi Kenangan’s tape. If you’re working in coffee anywhere between Jakarta and Manila, your total addressable comp landscape got redrawn this week.
Also Worth Knowing
- Cotti Coffee eyes the UK regions. Nine months after opening its first two London stores in February 2026, China’s second-largest coffee chain (18,000+ global outlets) is scouting Birmingham and Manchester as its first regional push beyond London. Cotti’s European scale-up since January has covered France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal.
- EUDR gets a scope expansion. Amendments the European Parliament endorsed came into force on September 18, folding soluble coffee (plus certain palm oil derivatives) into the EUDR’s regulatory perimeter. The core December 30, 2026 compliance deadline for large EU businesses still stands, with June 30, 2027 for SMEs. Instant-coffee traders who had scoped themselves out of EUDR now have three months to build their diligence stack.
- Cecafé September exports run hot. Brazilian September green coffee shipments to date are running 34% ahead of the same period a year ago, with cumulative bags at 1,821,158 by September 18 — well ahead of August’s comparable pace. That is the physical flow that is putting the pressure on the C market.
Who to Follow This Week
| Name | Why Now |
|---|---|
| Brian Niccol, CEO, Starbucks | Second cafe-closure wave in 12 months and a $2B cost-out target by FY28 — the “Back to Starbucks” playbook is now visibly a shrink-to-grow story in North America |
| David Thai, Founder & CEO, Highlands Coffee | Just bought back majority control from Jollibee at an $800M implied equity mark — the template every Asian coffee founder-with-MNC-partner will study |
| Mair Group (Abu Dhabi) | First international, first coffee. UAE capital is now a live buyer of specialty chains between Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur |
| Pusha T & Pharrell Williams (via Grindin Coffee / Lavazza) | Second week in a row of A-list attention-economy talent building serious coffee brands — the shelf war for premium ground is about to get loud |
| Roisin Currie, CEO, Greggs | Officially runs the UK’s biggest branded coffee operator by outlet count — and is on track for 100–110 more openings in 2026 alone |
| Edward Tirtanata, Co-founder & CEO, Kopi Kenangan | Lining up Southeast Asia’s first $1B+ coffee IPO; the print will reset regional multiples |
| Vanusia Nogueira, Executive Director, ICO | The ICO’s coming statements on the StoneX 10M-bag surplus call are the ones the whole trade desks will read first |
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