Eve retrospective: Is Quafe a monopoly?

To most the answer would probably be ‘yes’, but its not so clear-cut as that.

Its safe to say that Quafe has a strong grip on the soft drinks market. It is, after all the only soft drinks manufacturer to extend its reach beyond the plebeians planet-side. But the fact of the matter is that for a long time there was a capsuleer-founded alternative created by the Caldari.

Enter Starsi

Starsi - It tastes like revenge, apparently

"It tastes like revenge" may not be the best marketing. How does revenge taste anyway? Clearly limiting itself to the Caldari market with this one methinks.

Starsi is obviously harking back to the earlier days of the old Caladari-Gallente war (as opposed to the new one), and those that created the product were loyalists to the Caldari cause, wanting to see the State return to its former glory.

Whether or not Quafe felt the squeeze of this new upstart brand to rival its own, is impossible to know without insider information, but several capsuleers would champion the benefits of one over the other.

Shintoko Akahoshi > IforonewouldhavetoagreewithSarkosQuafe’POWER’isafine
finedrinkIdrinkitallthetimeIfindthatitreallyhelpswithmyreactiontimeswhen
pilotingmyshipaswellasimprovingmyshorttermmemoryallinallIfindabout
sixcansofitmakesagoodcombinationwithaninhalerfullofvassopressintheonly
sideeffectIcoulddowithoutisaslightshakinginmyhandsaswellasallthesegiant
furrybatsthatarecirclingmyheadalwayscirclingcirclingcirclingohGodthebats
thebatsgetthemoffameohmyGodtherecomingouttathewalls

I’m not entirely sure if this is a good or bad point for Quafe…

But when the question was raised about the Quafe company’s extensive buy orders for garbage, Voogru (who some my know from his guardianship of one of the very few Opux Luxury Yachts) stood up in their defence:

Quafe buys garbage and does the following with them:

– Plastic is recycled and used to create Quafe bottles.
– Paper is recycled and used to create labels.
– Metal scraps are recycled and used to create shuttles.
– Wood is used to create shipping crates.

Crazily addictive, and possibly made from reprocessed garbage. Lovely. One can see why such claims came about though. Following from the accusations levied at Quafe by Sukuuvestaa regarding the ‘industrial espionage’ of SuVee’s new Protein Delicacies line of foods – which were found to contain sewage and biomass – Caldari loyalists were eager to counter these claims (whether they were true or not).

But that’s not all

With the options being limited to what essentially could be drinking liquified garbage or drinking revenge, many other drinks began to be released to small fanfare. In spite of the potential appeal of ‘revenge’ from the Matari angle, new drinks from Republic space cropped up. Typically these were alcoholic – the hard-drinking badasses that we are *cough*.

  • PodBeer – a lager drink created by Freya Jones, who was at the time with Gradient, but later went on to be CEO of Wasteland Miners.
  • PodJuice – a very strong liquor, also by Freya Jones
  • Jug’ta ale – a dark ale created by the Nomads corporation. This came in two varieties: regular and the extremely rare ‘golden cask’
  • Amamake Suicide Dash – A cocktail devised by Caellach Marellus
  • Nakugard Ice-vodka – A cocktail devised by Evanda Char
  • Rimpon juice – a non-alcoholic mixer created by Matariki Rain and developed further by Ciarente Roth

As well as some from outside the Republic:

  • Samuel Rackham – Premium Caldari ale created by Kaleigh Doyle when she was heading up The Glamour Syndicate
  • Aqueus – Fruit flavoured water, also created by The Glamour Syndicate

There are most likely many more drinks created by capsuleers over the years. Do you know of any others? Perhaps a favourite cocktail?

So is Quafe a monopoly? It undoubtedly has a massive stranglehold on its chosen market, but it has never really interfered with the launch of competitors or made any attempts to rebuke claims of poisoning its own consumers or the questioning of the product’s content. Indeed, the Quafe company has never really engaged in any anti-competitive behaviour at all, it just happens that those that drink the stuff appear to be hopelessly addicted, and subsequently buy it by the freighter-load.

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Comments for this Post

One thought on “Eve retrospective: Is Quafe a monopoly?”

  1. 15th Apr '10 at 7:42 pm

    I always like hearing things about Quafe, makes you wonder exactly what those dirty Gallentians are up to!

  2. 15th Apr '10 at 7:42 pm

    I always like hearing things about Quafe, makes you wonder exactly what those dirty Gallentians are up to!

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