Coffee: Kraft's Achilles Heel

With Starbucks Corporation (Nasdaq: SBUX) set to report earnings this afternoon, I can almost taste the latte grande with soy milk served in a sturdy, made-of-slightly-recycled-paper cup. BloggingStocks' Beth Gaston Moon had a good write up this morning on what to expect from Starbucks this afternoon. I think investors underappreciate the opportunity Starbucks has in China, but that's another story.

With my mind on a big cup o' joe, I was excited to read a very interesting research piece published by Bernstein Research on Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) entitled "Kraft: Tassimo Single-Serve Coffee has Scalded Performance in Recent Years, but Recovery is in Sight." An engaging piece, yes -- Bernstein is so all over Kraft and this piece is an amazing research work on the effort, money, and focus Kraft has poured into their coffee service, Tassimo.

This project, estimated to have used over $1.5 billion of corporate resources since 2001, is deemed to have starved the organization of resources that could have been better used in other areas of the firm. Bernstein writes, "We believe that Kraft's overall margins and top-line have been adversely affected as established products have been starved of R&D and marketing resources and capital expenditures."

This refocus of corporate resources and management brainspace is what's behind today's announcement that Kraft will be spinning/splitting off Post Cereals. It's also part of the reason why uberinvestors Peltz and Icahn are investing in the underperforming food company.

With a commitment to selling off poorly performing assets, rationalization of businesses that don't make sense in the Kraft strategy, and hopefully a pull-back in record-high cheese prices, Kraft looks primed to make some serious coffee beans for investors.

Zack Miller is the Managing Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. Disclosure: Author's clients own Kraft.