Peet’s Coffee & Tea Scoops Up Stumptown Roasters

Two coffee companies are coming together in a caffeinated embrace, pledging to combine their beans and walk off into the sunset together: Peet’s Coffee & Tea has bought high-end coffee brand Stumptown Roasters that has created quite the buzz for itself among dedicated customers.

Stumptown Coffee, based in Portland, OR, won’t be sold in Peet’s cafes or vice versa, both companies assured customers. In fact, not much will change on the consumer side after the two become one, reports the New York Times.

“We both fit well under a family of coffee brands run independently and treated as separate businesses but with similar values,” said Joth Ricci, president of Stumptown.

One thing Peet’s is looking forward to is learning how to hook the popular kids, after Stumptown’s success peddling cold-brewed coffee in retro brown jars and selling a canned version of its popular nitro cold-brewed coffee.

“In about 2011 or 2012, when Stumptown first produced this stubby bottle that was the first cold-brewed ready-to-drink product, we knew it was onto something,” said Dave Burwick, chief executive of Peet’s.

Going fancy is all the rage these days: just last year, Starbucks went after the specialty coffee segment by opening up a roastery and cafe in its home town of Seattle, where it offers up a fancier brand called Starbucks Reserve.

Peet’s majority owner also holds majority stakes in Caribou Coffee Company as well as Jacobs Douwe Egberts, a European coffee operation.

Peet’s Buys Stumptown Coffee Roasters [New York Times]

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