SEATTLE & ST. LOUIS - Starbucks announced earlier this week that it has entered into an agreement with Courtesy Products, a leading provider of single-serve, in-room coffee service to hotels, to provide its ground coffees for use in Courtesy's CV1 in-room and on-demand brewed coffee system in up to 500,000 luxury and premium U.S. hotel rooms, beginning this fall.

Jeff Hansberry, president, Starbucks Consumer Products Group, said the single-serve coffee category in the U.S. is in an early stage of development, and the company is seeking to explore all opportunities related to the category.

"At this very early stage, there are numerous contenders and no demonstrated, long-term winners related to either format or machines," Hansberry said. "Following our very successful introduction of Starbucks VIA Ready Brew in the U.S. and into a growing number of international markets, Starbucks will continue to explore the many single-serve and on-the-go solutions and options available to us, and to participate in those where we can better and more conveniently serve our customers wherever they may be."

According to Nielsen Data, premium single-cup represented more than two thirds of the dollar growth in total U.S. coffee category in the latest 52-week measuring period, with Starbucks VIA driving 40 percent of that growth.