Merrild: Creating a Growth Strategy for the Future of Danish Coffee CultureMerrild: Creating a Growth Strategy for the Future of Danish Coffee Culture

The Challenge

For more than 60 years, Merrild has played a central role in Danish coffee culture. With strong brand awareness and a deep-rooted position in consumers' everyday lives, the brand had a solid foundation to build upon.

However, changing consumer expectations, evolving coffee habits and increasing competition highlighted the need to ensure the brand remained relevant and appealing for future generations of coffee drinkers.

Merrild therefore set out to create a clear strategic platform that could strengthen the brand, align the organisation around a shared ambition and provide a roadmap for future growth across markets, categories and touchpoints.

Our Approach

Merrild partnered with CPH Strategy to develop a comprehensive growth strategy.

The project was built on an extensive insight phase, including stakeholder interviews across local and international teams, consumer research, market analysis and focus groups exploring coffee habits, needs and perceptions across categories and occasions.

Based on these insights, we developed a new strategic foundation centred around a bold winning aspiration:

Shaping Danish Coffee Culture Since 1964.

From there, we built a complete growth platform designed to guide future decision-making across the organisation.

Together We Built

• Brand Audit - A comprehensive assessment of the brand, market dynamics, consumer perceptions (from focus groups) and growth opportunities.

• Winning Aspiration - A renewed strategic direction defining Merrild's long-term ambition

• Strategic Pillars & Playing Fields - A clear framework identifying where the brand should focus and how it can create competitive advantage.

• Value Proposition Mapping - A structured approach to defining the value Merrild delivers across consumers, customers and categories

• Portfolio Strategy - Strategic recommendations to optimise the portfolio and guide future innovation opportunities

• Go-to-Market Strategy - A roadmap for activating the strategy

• Brand Book – A practical framework translating the strategy into a consistent and compelling brand experience.

The Outcome

The result was a clear and actionable strategic platform that connects Merrild's heritage with its future ambitions.

The new growth strategy provides a shared direction across markets, helping the organisation make more focused decisions around brand building, portfolio development, innovation, design and activation.

More than a strategy project, the work established a long-term platform for growth – enabling Merrild to continue shaping Danish coffee culture for generations to come.