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Not to be confused with Kemco.

Kenco is a British brand of instant coffee sold by JDE Peet’s in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Originally known as the Kenya Coffee Company, they started distributing coffee to Britain in 1923. Shortly after, they opened a coffee shop in Sloane Square and then changed their name to Kenco in 1962.

In 2008, the brand was relaunched with 75% of the beans for its instant range being sourced from Rainforest Alliance certified farms. The company sources their coffee beans from Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Indonesia.[1]

History

Kenco was founded in 1923 by a co-operative of retired White Kenyan coffee growers who traded as “The Kenya Coffee Company Limited”. Soon, L.C. Gibbs and C.S. Baines began selling coffee from a shop in Vere Street, Mayfair. The shop sold roast and ground coffee locally but most of its sales were by mail order, selling coffee to country houses using advertisements in publications such as Tatler, Country Life and The Times.

As demand increased, the company moved to number 30 Sloane Street, London, next door to a food merchants called John Gardiner. Gardiner ran a food wholesale business, restaurants and provided outdoor catering at events such as the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Through the 1930’s the company expanded further with premises in Bermondsey and Earlsfield.[2][3]

After World War II, Tom Kelly, a Gardiner employee, persuaded the company to buy the Kenya Coffee Company. On completion of the deal, Kelly was put in charge of the new business and he expanded the retail chain. As well as selling coffee by mail order and from the Sloane Street premises, Kelly diversified into catering and opened eleven coffee shops in locations such as Wimbledon, King’s Road and Golders Green. These Kenya Coffee Company shops may well have been the first branded high street coffee shops in the UK. In the 1960s, the cafés were thriving, selling not only coffee but all sorts of cakes as well. Besides the coffee shop activity, Kelly also acquired the rights to sell Gaggia machines, and so the company started to sell espresso machines to other coffee bars.

In 1962, the Kenyan Coffee Company changed its name into the Kenco Coffee Company, to reflect that the amount of coffee the company bought from Kenya was decreasing. In October 1964, Trust Houses purchased John Gardiner.[4] Trust Houses sold Kenco to Cadbury Schweppes in 1969.[5]

In the 1980s, Kenco introduced instant freeze-dried coffee.[6] In 2011 the brand introduced the first ‘whole bean instant’ coffee, called Millicano: a blend of 15% roast & ground coffee and instant coffee. Within 4 weeks, it had sold nearly a million packs, and became their most successful coffee launch ever.[7][8] The business was sold, along with Typhoo and Hartley’s by Cadbury Schweppes in 1986 to a management buyout, who named themselves Premier Brands,[9] but Kenco was sold a year later to General Foods, in a agreement which had helped Hillsdown purchase Premier.[10][11] The acquisition led to General Foods being the market leading manufacturer of coffee in the United Kingdom with a 25% share.[12] In 1989, Kenco became part of Kraft General Foods, after Philip Morris International, its owner merged the business with it’s other food operation Kraft Foods Inc.[13][14] In 1995, the company was renamed Kraft Foods[15], before it was split into two entities, with Kenco becoming part of Mondelēz International.[16][17]

In 2014, Mondelez merged its coffee operations with DE Master Blenders to form Jacobs Douwe Egberts.[18] in August 2025, Keurig Dr Pepper agreed to purchase the patent company for $18 billion.[19]

References

  1. ^ Kenco – Coffee Origins Archived 2010-04-21 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ “Kenco: Our Story”. Kenco. Retrieved 2024-09-15.
  3. ^ “The Kenya Coffee Company Ltd”. Evening Times. No. 25, 829. Glasgow. 1959-02-05. p. 13. Retrieved 2024-09-15.
  4. ^ “Gardner Merchant Company Profile 1886-1994”. The Caterer. 28 December 2015.
  5. ^ “Trust Houses sells Kenco”. The Times. 3 January 1969.
  6. ^ “Our Story”. www.kenco.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-12-19.
  7. ^ “Millicano | ?What If!”. whatifinnovation.com. 2016-12-21. Retrieved 2024-12-19.
  8. ^ Bamford, Vince (2014-02-16). “Coffee drinkers angry over Kenco Millicano production changes”. The Grocer. Retrieved 2024-12-19.
  9. ^ “Cadbury Schweppes divest Food operations”. The Times. 14 January 1986.
  10. ^ Richard Koch (2011). The 80/20 Individual. The Nine Essentials of 80/20 Success at Work. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. ISBN 9781857889086.
  11. ^ Directory of Multinationals: L-Z. Caritas Data. 2001. p. 1038.
  12. ^ John Sutton (1991). Sunk Costs and Market Structure. Price Competition, Advertising, and the Evolution of Concentration. MIT Press. p. 495. ISBN 9780262193054.
  13. ^ Archives, L. A. Times (1995-01-05). “Philip Morris to Consolidate 2 Food Divisions : Restructuring: Kraft and General Foods businesses will join under the Kraft Foods banner”. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-08-24.
  14. ^ Brewington, David (January 29, 2025). “Kraft Heinz Exhibits a Concerning Trend of Divestitures and Contraction”. Yahoo Finance. Retrieved August 24, 2025.
  15. ^ “Blending Kraft and General Foods”. The New York Times. 1995-01-05. Retrieved 2025-08-24.
  16. ^ WATSON, Elaine (2012-10-01). “Vernon leads charge at ‘New Kraft’ as old Kraft officially splits into two”. FoodNavigator-USA.com. Retrieved 2025-08-24.
  17. ^ Rushe, Dominic (2012-03-21). “Kraft spins off snacks business into new Mondelez International company”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-08-24.
  18. ^ “Mondelez announces coffee merger to exploit $81bn category”. Marketing Week. 7 May 2014.
  19. ^ “Keurig Dr Pepper to buy Peet’s coffee for $18bn”. BBC News. 25 August 2025.