Costa Coffee is a coffee house company based in the United Kingdom founded in 1971 by Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. Since 1995 it has been a subsidiary of, the Whitbread company, since when the company has grown to over 1700 stores in the UK and abroad. The company's current managing director is John Derkach and Adrian Johnson is Chief Operating Officer.