That’s a lotta lattes: La Colombe has been acquired by Chobani for $900M

La Colombe has been acquired by Greek yogurt giant Chobani for $900 million.

It’s big news for a coffee brand that started in Philly in 1994 and has grown to 32 cafes in six states and DC, plus launched a canned beverage line and other retail products. (Here’s Technical.ly’s 2016 report on the science behind La Colombe’s draft latte in a can.)

The major leap to the next level kicked off back in 2014. Here’s how it went down:

• Private equity firm Goode Partners invested in La Colombe in 2014.
• Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya bought out Good Partners and purchased a share of the company in 2015 to become its majority owner. Ulukaya already had an established relationship with cofounders Todd Carmichael and JP Iberti because La Colombe had supplied coffee to Chobani cafes.
• In 2021, Carmichael stepped down as CEO to focus on his new bottled beverage company, Rebel Beverage Labs. (First product: non-carbonated Loftiwater.)
• This summer, Keurig Dr Pepper invested $300 million in La Colombe in exchange for a 33% ownership stake in the company. This made Keurig Dr Pepper the second largest investor in La Colombe.
• Today, Chobani announced its acquisition of La Colombe via a $550 million term loan, cash on hand, and exchanging Keurig Dr Pepper’s minority equity stake in La Colombe to Chobani equity.

“We’ve already made an investment in the coffee category with our creamers and are excited about bringing La Colombe into the Chobani family, and offering the delicious, high-quality cold brew and ready-to-drink craftmanship of La Colombe to a next generation of consumers, powered by a strong distribution partner in KDP,” Ulukaya said in a written statement.

La Colombe will continue to be an independent brand under the Chobani umbrella.

Carmichael, a frequent public speaker who has appeared on the Technical.ly conference stage during Philly Tech Week, has not yet publicly commented on the sale.

Here we are all obsessing about AI, meanwhile Chobani is buying La Colombe for $900M and one of the rare IPOs of the year was a hummus chain

— Matt Turck (@mattturck) December 15, 2023

Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.