Starbucks to Perk Up Stop & Shop Stores

Starbucks Corp. plans to boots its reach and open full-service licensed stores in Stop & Shop supermarkets this year. The deal puts the squeeze on rival Dunkin’ Donuts, which already operates in more than 100 Stop & Shops.

Under the five-year partnership, the Seattle-based coffee chain will open between 35 to 45 outlets in Stop & Shop locations this spring in New York and New Jersey area Stop & Shop stores and in Giant Food stores in Maryland, Faith Weiner, a spokesperson for The Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., said. Giant Food stores are part of Stop & Shop’s parent company, Royal Ahold.

“It’s a new relationship for us and we’re looking forward to it,” Weiner said.

Additional Starbucks outlets are expected to open in Stop & Shop stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire in 2007.

Under the agreement, the Starbucks stores will sell coffee, pastries and packaged Starbucks coffee, company spokesman Nick Davis said. Starbucks operates more than 2,600 licensed stores in the U.S., hundreds in retail outlets including Target, Albertson’s, Safeway, Kroger and Ahold.

“It’s a way for us to surprise and delight our customers who might not have expected to find us,” Davis said.

The arrangement comes five years after rival Dunkin’ Donuts opened 131 outlets in Stop & Shop supermarkets. Dunkin’ Donuts has an agreement to operate its outlets in Stop & Shop stores through 2009, according to news reports.

For now, Dunkin’ Donuts plans to continue its contract with Stop & Shop. The company, however, would not say whether it would extend the contract with the grocery chain.

“We will continue to honor existing agreements at…Stop & Shop supermarkets throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York,” Dunkin Donuts said in a statement.