Keurig Green Mountain Inc., Waterbury, Vt., and Community Coffee Co., Baton Rouge, La., announced a multi-year licensing, manufacturing and distribution agreement to bring Community Coffee to Keurig portion-pack formats for consumer and commercial Keurig hot-brewing systems. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

I remember the first time I heard about Keurig at-home brewers when they hit the market approximately 10 years ago.

As the chief executive officer of Waterbury, Vt.-based Keurig Green Mountain Inc., Brian Kelley describes his leadership style as challenging and fast-paced but open.

Barnie's CoffeeKitchen, Orlando, Fla., launched a new line of Keurig-compatible, single-serve coffees called CupUp. CupUp capsules brew a café-quality cup of coffee with 30 percent more coffee than other brands, the company says.

Waterbury, Vt.-based Keurig Green Mountain Inc. and Brockton, Mass.-based office products dealer W.B. Mason Co. Inc. signed a multi-year agreement to offer W.B. Mason’s Shazam Coffee in K-Cup packs for the Keurig hot-brewing system in away-from-home channels. Shazam will be the first brand to come into the Keurig family from a Keurig-authorized distributor.

High commodity pricing can be a major issue for the beverage industry. However, when premium-priced products are in demand, this challenge becomes less troublesome.

The gourmet coffee market has perked up this year, according to the National Coffee Association of USA Inc. (NCA). Approximately 34 percent of American adults drink gourmet coffee beverages daily, up 3 percentage points from 2013, according to the New York-based association’s “National Coffee Drinking Trends” market research study, which was released in March. Conversely, non-gourmet coffee drinking dropped 4 percentage points to 35 percent, it reports.

Nuzee Inc. launched a line of functional Coffee Blenders, which come packaged in single-serve K-Cup-compatible pods.

Portland, Ore.-based Boyd Coffee Co. is launching a new generation of single-serve coffees for single-cup coffee brewers. The new Boyd’s Coffee cups' soft mesh filters use less packaging than the traditional rigid-side cups and also enable coffee drinkers to smell the coffees’ fresh-roasted aromas, the company says.

Columbus, Ohio-based White Castle is making its medium-roast coffee available in single-cup coffee pods for consumers to brew at home.