JDE Peet’s Acquiring Caribou Coffee Roasting Operation in $260 Million Deal

A Caribou Coffee sign. Daily Coffee News photo by Nick Brown.

Minnesota-based Caribou Coffee is licensing its brand in consumer packaged goods and foodservice to multinational coffee roasting and distribution giant JDE Peet’s in a deal worth approximately $260 million, according to the companies.

The transaction also includes the transfer of Caribou Coffee’s production roasting operations in Minnesota, as well as all of Caribou’s office coffee and foodservice contracts.

The Minneapolis-area coffee company said the deal “enables Caribou Coffee to focus on its core popular retail coffeehouse business while providing JDE Peet’s a strong platform to expand its premium coffee portfolio in North America.”

Under the terms of the transaction, JDE Peet’s will roast, manufacture, market and sell all Caribou Coffee consumer packaged goods and foodservice products outside of the Caribou Coffee retail locations. The conglomerate will also be responsible for supplying Caribou Coffee shops with roasted coffee, based on agreed-upon “exacting standards” for specialty coffee.

JDE Peet’s is also the owner of Peet’s Coffee, whose subsidiaries include Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Intelligentsia Coffee.

The publicly traded, Amsterdam-based conglomerate JDE Peet’s was formed through a 2019 merger of United States-based Peet’s Coffee and Dutch coffee giant Jacobs Douwe Egberts. Prior to an IPO as JDE Peet’s, both those companies were wholly owned by an investment arm of JAB Holding Company, the German billionaire Reimann-family-owned organization that has made tens of billions of dollars worth of investments in the coffee industry since first acquiring Peet’s in 2012.

One of those investments was the 2012 acquisition of Caribou Coffee for approximately $340 million. At that time, Caribou Coffee had approximately 610 coffee shops in 22 U.S. states and 10 international markets.

Caribou currently has approximately 800 stores, including 333 company-owned locations, 140 nontraditional locations such as campus bars, and 338 franchise locations. The company closed its original coffee shop in Edina, Minnesota, late last year.

Caribou Coffee is part of JAB Holding Company-owned Panera Brands, which comprises the brands Caribou Coffee, Einstein Bros Bagels and Panera Bread.

“This transaction validates the success of multiple business platforms our team has built over the last several years, and JDE Peet’s has the right resources, expertise and team to continue its growth trajectory,” John Butcher, president and CEO of Caribou Coffee, said in a company announcement today. “At the same time, the transaction will leave Caribou Coffee in a stronger position to do what we do best: providing guests with delicious products served alongside an award-winning customer experience.”

Noting some other brands owned by JDE Peet’s and its subsidiaries, JDE Peet’s CEO Fabien Simon said, “We are delighted with this partnership, which adds Caribou to our existing portfolio of premium brands which we distribute [sic.], including Peet’s, Stumptown, Intelligentsia and L’OR, to serve more coffee lovers in North America.”

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