The bidding war between Emeryville-based coffeehouse operator Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. and Irvine-based coffee seller Diedrich Coffee Inc. has come to a new front. Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. with its new offer of $265.2 million has decided to pay more cash and stock to Diedrich.

Last week, Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc made an offer of $265 million and Diedrich reported that they were interested in this proposal. The latest proposal of Peet’s has got the attention of Diedrich. In the beginning of November, Diedrich was offered $213 million in cash and stock by Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. Later Green Mountain made an offer of $247 million cash and then this latest $265 million offer of Peet’s continues the rivalry.

Diedrich is known for providing coffee to restaurants and workplaces. They are also involved in selling a new type of single brewing cup. K-Cups are the common factor for this ongoing bidding war for Diedrich. Keurig Inc., which is a part of Green Mountain, is the brain behind K-Cups.

Both Green Mountain and Peet’s are participating to the fullest in the bidding war as Diedrich is one of the few companies having a license to make K-Cups. These cups are considered as one of the best ways to reduce the cost of coffee by various companies. Stores like Wal-Mart along with other retailers sell them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Venture Capital News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.