Peet’s Coffee unveils RTD cold brew
Peet’s Coffee has rolled out its ready-to-drink (RTD) premium cold brew coffee line with Baridi Black, Coffee au Lait and Dark Chocolate. The new line includes Peet’s freshly roasted beans that are cold brewed to the same standard used in its cafés. Peet’s Cold Brew started shipping on 25 July and will soon be available in select Peet’s Coffee cafés, grocery stores, and partner locations in the San Francisco Bay Area before expanding into new markets.
“We’re proud to launch our ready-to-drink line during our 50th anniversary year as these new cold brew beverages build on the heritage of Peet’s Coffee and our five decades of coffee craftsmanship,” said Dave Burwick, CEO at Peet’s Coffee in California. “Coffee consumers are increasingly sophisticated and by leveraging the equity we have in coffee, we’re introducing beverages that will delight not just our existing fan base of Peetniks, but all coffee lovers.”
The new RTD cold brew, with a suggested retail price of $3.99, comes in three offerings:
- Baridi Black Cold Brew—the purest expression of cold brew from Peet’s Coffee, served straight up in a 12-oz glass bottle;
- Coffee au Lait Cold Brew—a coffee-forward pairing of Baridi Black with the freshest rBST-free milk (a hormone that is naturally occurring in female dairy cows) and pure cane sugar, in a 10-oz carton;
- Dark Chocolate Cold Brew—Baridi Black made even more irresistible with the freshest rBST-free milk and rich Guittard cocoa, in a 10-oz carton.
To uphold the strict standards Peet’s has for quality, flavor and freshness, each recipe is created with carefully sourced ingredients, including real cane sugar, rBST-free milk, and rich cocoa from Guittard Chocolate Company. There are no artificial ingredients, colours or preservatives, and no carrageenan (an additive extracted from red edible seaweeds that is non digestible and has no nutritional value that is often found in almond and coconut milk). Peet’s is providing Direct Store Delivery (DSD) of RTD cold brew beverages in its own refrigerated trucks to ensure product makes it to shelves as quickly as possible and under the best conditions.
Given the positive response to the cold brew Peet’s launched in its cafés during the summer of 2015, this year’s newly launched RTD line was a natural progression to meeting customer demand for a grab-and-go option. This move also taps current trends, such as the 2015 Mintel Coffee report, which noted that cold brew is an industry wide sensation, growing 338.9% from 2010-15, with 115% of that growth from 2014 to 2015 alone.
“Ready to drink is yet another example of our commitment to innovate. Last year we transformed our iced coffee program by shifting from a hot brew that was chilled over ice to a cold brew that was slow brewed,” said Jessica Mitchell, senior director of innovation at Peet’s Coffee. “This shift drove double-digit growth for our cold coffee business in our cafés, and was among the highest performing product lines in our entire portfolio.”