Peet’s Coffee & Tea Acquires Stumptown Coffee Roasters

In their blog post from earlier this evening Stumptown Coffee Roasters wrote,

“As of this week, we have been acquired by Peet’s Coffee & Tea. We’re excited about the opportunities this will provide for us as we continue to grow.”

Stumptown goes on to explain how this acquisition will not impact their goals, or how they plan on achieving them. If anything, it appears as though Stumptown is getting a financial boost from Peet’s Coffee & Tea. In addition to the New Orleans location mentioned in the blog post, I would expect more stores to begin to show up across the U.S.

What does all this mean? Well, hopefully, not much. Except a whole lot more Stumptown.

If you hadn’t noticed, cold brew was a big craze this summer – to the point that Starbucks even cashed in on the hype. In many ways, Stumptown pioneered this coffee fad with the introduction of their squat bottles filled with cold brew in 2011. According to the NY Times article about this acquisition, this is around the time that Peet’s started to notice that Stumptown was doing something different.

My call? If anything, this is a great move for Peet’s. While they have been a mainstay in the coffee industry for decades, their image is closer to Starbucks than it is to Stumptown. Not only will this press be good for them, but the money that Stumptown brings in every summer with cold brew – along with their new stores – will make Peet’s tons of money.

Stumptown seems to be pretty solid on the idea that they are staying the same as a company. As a fan of their product, I definitely hope so.

The Coffee Guy