Expo West 2018

La Colombe on ‘liberating the café menu’

By Mary Ellen Shoup

- Last updated on GMT

Ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee company La Colombe is seeking to recreate the coffee shop consumer experience with its line of draft lattes, launching three new products.

“At the core of La Colombe is innovation,”​ CEO and cofounder of La Colombe Todd Carmichael said. “Our newest products are bringing us one step closer to liberating the café menu.”

The café-style drinking experience is delivered through a patent-pending called InnoValve that creates a foamy texture upon opening the can, according to the company.

“The only way to get a crafted drink was to go to a café,”​ La Colombe SVP of sales, Tim Seaton, told BeverageDaily at the Natural Products Expo West shot in Anaheim, California.

“Now with this technology in the draft latte you can have a great crafted drink when you want without having to wait in line for 20 minutes.”

Consumer input on new flavors

La Colombe recently debuted its two new draft latte flavors, honeysuckle and Brazilian caramel, chosen from its ‘Craft the Next Drat Campaign’, which polled its customer base to choose the next two seasonal flavors.

“When we got ready to come up with a new flavor we thought why not ask our consumers?”​ Seaton said. “Botanicals are one of the hottest new trends within natural foods.”

La Colombe also added a single-original RTD pure black Colombian organic cold brew brewed for 16 hours, as well as “innovative concept  products”,​ including a cold brew lemon infusion, draft lemon, and a latte wand for at-home use.

In January, La Colombe announced that it gained a 40% all commodity volume (ACV) in its first eight months since launching, making it the fastest growing RTD coffee beverage in the US, according to IRI dollar share data of RTD coffee ending Dec. 31, 2017.

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