Philly-born coffee giant La Colombe sold to Greek yogurt brand Chobani for $900 million

Philly-born coffee purveyor La Colombe was acquired for $900 million on Friday by Chobani, a company known for its Greek yogurt.

“We have never been stronger or better positioned to chart our next chapter of growth,” said Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani founder and chief executive officer, in a statement.

Chobani’s products include yogurts, oat milk, and coffee creamers, which are produced in New York, Idaho, and Australia, according to the company website.

Ulukaya joined the coffee company as an investor and as the majority owner in 2015. At the time, Ulukaya said he had become aware of La Colombe founders because he was looking for a coffee roaster for the Chobani cafés.

“I believe in the quality of the product and the brand vision of La Colombe,” he said in 2015, saying he shared the brand’s “mission to make better coffee available to more people.”

La Colombe will continue to function as an independent brand.

“It’s Philadelphia’s unique, beautiful brand,” Ulukaya said. “It’s about to take off to the country, if not around the world, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

The founders of La Colombe, Todd Carmichael and J.P. Iberti, met in 1987 in the mosh pit of a Seattle grunge bar. Carmichael was a coffee roaster and an alum of Starbucks, and Iberti was working part-time for Torrefazione Italia, an Italian coffee company.

They found a cheap warehouse building in Port Richmond and an available space to lease just off Rittenhouse Square. They decided to set up shop in Philadelphia.

In 1994, the pair founded La Colombe — named after La Colombe d’Or, a cafe in Iberti’s hometown of Saint-Paul de Vence, France — in its current location on 19th Street near Rittenhouse Square.

Since then, the company has grown to include 32 coffee shops in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Austin, and Washington, D.C., and has expanded to sell canned drinks.

La Colombe pioneered the draft latte, first in cafés in 2015 and then in individual cans, which launched on the market in 2016 in 5,000 Target, Whole Foods, Wegmans, Wawa, Costco, and Publix stores.

At the time, Carmichael said coffee was the “national beverage, more than soda or wine. We’re running with the wind.”

Ready-to-drink canned lattes generate most of La Colombe’s revenue, according to Fast Company magazine.

“I’m more proud of this than everything else combined,” Carmichael told The Inquirer in 2015.

Chobani’s acquisition of La Colombe comes following a $300 million investment in the coffee brand from beverage producer and manufacturer Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. this summer. Part of the agreement included launching a single-serve coffee pod and selling La Colombe coffee through the Keurig Dr Pepper distribution network. The sale of La Colombe to Chobani includes transferring the minority equity stake that Keurig Dr Pepper’s had in the company into Chobani equity.

Ulukaya says employees of La Colombe, not just executives, will benefit from the acquisition.

Chobani, based in New York state, announced in 2016 that it would give around 10% ownership stake of the company to 2,000 of its full-time employees, according to the New York Times.

“There will be no difference between La Colombe and Chobani when it comes to employee wages and compensations and benefits,” Ulukaya said. “La Colombe people will have the same profits and share options as Chobani employees.”

Details about what that could look like could come in the next weeks or months, he said.

Reached Friday following the news of the acquisition, Carmichael, who stepped back from his daily oversight of the company in 2021 and assumed an advisory role, said, “I would have preferred to be rolled out of the factory in a wheelchair with a blanket on my knees at 95. But that wasn’t possible. For founders, that dream isn’t always possible. There is only the possible best. This is that best.”

After plans to take Chobani public last year, Ulukaya backtracked, according to CNBC. Ulukaya said the company is “functioning really well” right now, that he is happy with sales, growth, and innovation and that he is a fan of a mindset of “focus and go deep.”

Ulukaya told Fast Company that he believes La Colombe could take on bottled coffee brands such as Starbucks, Dunkin’, Black Rifle, and Monster.

“I don’t see us jumping to other categories until we see that the job is done in coffees and creamers,” he said.