Instant coffee national boom

Instant coffee national boom

By 1953, instant coffee had crossed roughly 17% of U.S. coffee consumption as Nescafé and General Foods’ Maxwell House Instant scaled national television advertising and supermarket distribution. The shift from roasted-ground to soluble coffee is the defining mid-century competitive pressure on regional roasters: convenience and shelf-life advantages favor national brands with continental marketing budgets. H&H’s response is documented as the 1957 Master Chef Instant Coffee launch — a defensive move into the category roughly four years after the national boom inflected.