The UK’s love affair with coffee shops shows no sign of abating with the number of stores in the UK up 7% in 2009 more than double the rate of increase compared to last year.
According to the Local Data Company, the number of coffee shops in the UK increased by 3% in 2008 and 7% in 2009. The total number of independent coffee shops stands at 9,441 in the 705 researched town centres, compared to just over 2,000 chain outlets. The top six coffee shop chains, including Costa Coffee and Starbucks, saw their combined retail estate increase by 47% this year, while independents also saw store numbers rise by 12.5% in the top 10 cities to 2,486, and their market share up 1% to 70%.
Costa is the largest player with around 950 outlets, while Star-bucks was in second place with just under 719 outlets, according to British Baker’s Top 50 table.