For Peet's sake!

From today's Bee:

A new coffee company expansion is under way in the Sacramento region.

While rival Starbucks is shuttering hundreds of stores nationwide, Peet's Coffee and Tea is adding two more retail locations here this year – in addition to four already opened in 2008. The six new stores, which bring the area's total to 16, are in El Dorado Hills, Fair Oaks, Roseville and Sacramento.

It's also vastly expanding its shelf space for bagged coffee sales in local supermarkets.

Peet's CEO Patrick O'Dea says Sacramento was something of a test market for the company – "a good learning experience" on how to take its brand into a new city.

The results are most positive in the grocery sector, he says. Two years ago, Peet's was a "distant second" to Starbucks in terms of grocery sales.

Now it's No. 1, with a 15 percent market share, according to O'Dea.

Peet's, which was founded 42 years ago in Berkeley, also is contracting with third parties to open dozens of kiosks in local supermarkets, colleges and other locations, the exec reports.

How is Peet's able to expand when Starbucks is scaling back? One reason is that it hasn't saturated the market, as its giant rival perhaps did.

Another reason is that Peet's coffee is AWESOME. Apparently Bob Shallit has never tried it.