The great consumer watchdog blog Value Ireland has posted today about looking for the cheapest coffee in Ireland. Quite the coincidence, as I’ve been working on a bit of a rant. I was in the IFSC yesterday for work and saw that the branch of O’Brien’s Sandwich Bar there had a sign outside saying ‘All Takeaway Coffee €2.50 before 11am.’
My first reaction was to almost laugh out loud at what a miserable discount that is on the usual price of takeaway coffee in the city centre, which is anything from €2 to €3 in the coffee shops near me. But then I went into O’Brien’s to look at their prices, and was astonished at how much they’re charging for coffee. A single espresso is €2.60. A large cappuccino is €3.50. A large flavoured latte is €4! Isn’t a flavoured latte just a latte with a shot of that gloopy syrup dumped into it? How on earth can they justify charging €4 for it?
The CEO of O’Brien’s was recently quoted complaining about the effect of the recession on sandwich shops, but where is their attempt to give customers a better deal? I don’t want to see O’Brien’s or anyone else closing their shops, but when are they going to introduce more realistic prices?
And while I’m moaning about O’Brien’s, it’s worth mentioning that instead of Fairtrade-certified coffee, they use something that appears to be called ‘Ethical Honest Fair Honest Ethical’ (seriously) but which doesn’t have any visible Fairtrade accreditation.
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