Peet's Coffee is a San Francisco Bay Area-based specialty coffeeroaster and retailer owned by JAB Holding Company via JDE Peet's. Founded in 1966 by Alfred Peet in Berkeley, California, Peet's introduced the United States to its darker roasted Arabica coffee in blends including French roast and grades appropriate for espresso drinks.[2][3][4] Peet's offers freshly roasted beans, brewed coffee and espresso beverages, as well as bottled cold brew.[5] In 2007, Peet's opened the first LEED Gold Certified roastery in the United States.[6] Peet's coffee is sold in over 14,000 grocery stores across the United States.[7]
Alfred Peet grew up in the Netherlands, where his father owned and operated a coffee wholesale and coffee bean grindery. Peet trained with his father to roast and grind coffee.[8] In 1938, at the age of 18, he moved to London where he was employed by Twinings coffee and tea company.[9] He also spent time in New Zealand and Indonesia before moving to San Francisco in 1955 where he worked for a coffee and tea importer.[10]
In 1966, Peet opened the first "Peet's Coffee, Tea & Spices" in Berkeley, California, on Vine Street near the University of California, Berkeley, campus. It originally sold coffee beans, not cups of coffee. His coffee beans were hand-roasted in small batches. The company grew to four locations and became known as "Peet's Coffee and Tea."[11] Peet wanted to bring better coffee to the American market and became known as "the grandfather of specialty coffee."[12][13] The original location at Vine and Walnut remains open. The second location of Peet's Coffee was in Menlo Park, CA. [14]
Peet sold his business to Sal Bonavita in 1979, but remained working with the company as a coffee buyer and consultant until 1983.[15] In 1984, Jerry Baldwin, a Starbucks founder, bought Peet's four locations from Sal Bonavita. In 1987, Baldwin and his Starbucks co-investors sold Starbucks to focus on Peet's.[14]Howard Schultz, Starbucks' new owner, entered into a four-year non-compete agreement in the Bay Area.[16]
In 2001, the company was incorporated as Peet's Coffee and Tea Company and had its initial public offering. The company was listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol PEET, and 3.3 million shares were sold at $8 a share. Shares climbed to $9.38 and the company raised $26.4 million.[17][18]
Peet's opened a roasting plant in Alameda in 2007. This new location replaced the former operations in Emeryville, California, and is the nation's first LEED Gold Certified roastery.[6][19]
In 2012, employees at a Peet's location in Chicago formed Peet's Worker's Group to address concerns about compensation, irregular scheduling, sick leave, and working conditions which resulted in frequent wrist injuries. Three representatives from Peet's corporate visited their store, where they attributed workers' complaints to the performance of manager of that location, and declined to discuss further concerns except in one-on-one meetings. The group subsequently lost momentum, and the lead organizer was fired after clocking in late for the third time in one year. Remaining members of Peet's Worker's Group attributed her firing to a selective enforcement of the company's lateness policy.[20]
In 2012, Peet's was taken private when it was acquired by Joh. A Benckiser, a German investment group, for $977.6 million, or $73.50 per share. At that time, the acquisition was one of the largest prices paid for a Berkeley-founded company.[21]JAB Holding (Joh. A Benckiser) also owns minority stakes in the consumer products companies Reckitt Benckiser, Coty and control of luxury brands Bally, Belstaff and Jimmy Choo.[22] JAB Holding later acquired a portion of Caribou Coffee.[23]
In August 2014, Peet's acquired Mighty Leaf Tea, a specialty tea brand based in the Bay Area, in partnership with Next World Group.[24] It was announced in October 2015 that Stumptown Coffee Roasters would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Peet's.[25] Later that same month, Peet's announced that it was acquiring a majority stake in Chicago-based Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea.[26][27][28]
In December 2016, Peet's announced that it was building a second roaster in Suffolk, Virginia. The 175,000-square-foot facility will cost $58 million and was set to open in 2018.[29] At that time, the Alameda roaster was producing approximately 1 million pounds of coffee each week.[7]
Peet's opened its first location in Shanghai, China, in October 2017.[30]
As of fiscal year 2019, Peet's revenue grew to $983 million.[31]
On May 29, 2020, JDE Peet's, the owner of Peet's Coffee and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, raised $2.5 billion by taking the company public on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange in a deal that valued the company at $17.3 billion.[32] Defying the coronavirus pandemic and economic slowdown, it was the largest initial public offering in Europe during the first five months of 2020 and the second biggest IPO in the world.[33]
Peet's formerly operated in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, but Peet's shuttered these stores in 2014 to focus on the areas where it is growing.[36]
By December 2016, Peet's coffee was sold in 14,000 grocery stores, universities, and wholesalers across the United States. They had over a dozen coffeebar locations in Chicago and Boston as well as 23 in the Washington D.C. area at that time.[37]
Unionization
In June 2023, workers at the Southside Berkeley, Temescal and Piedmont locations filed petitions to hold union elections in an attempt to join the Industrial Workers of the World IU 460 chapter.[38]
Licensed partnerships
Peet's has outlets at many transit centers, including several airports.[39]
In 2003, the first full-service Peet's coffeebar on a university campus was opened within the Clark Center building at Stanford University.[40] Peet's coffee is also currently served at all Stanford dining locations. In 2005, UC Berkeley opened its own Peet's franchise on campus in Dwinelle Hall and as a campus restaurant near its existing dining area. Similarly in 2009, coffeebars opened at the UW–Madison's Memorial Union, Villanova University and UC San Diego.[41]
Peet's donated $250,000 to the University of California, Davis, to launch Coffee Center, a research hub dedicated to a multidisciplinary study of coffee, in September 2016. UC Davis is the first university in the world to dedicate a rigorous academic focus to post-harvest coffee. The program worked with the Specialty Coffee Association of America to get prospective graduates access to grants and fellowships.[42] In April 2017, Peet's signed an agreement with UC Berkeley's University Partnership Program to help fund student programs including student travel grants, scholarships, and paid internship opportunities.[43][44]
Products
In September 2015, Peet's announced that it was adding all-day breakfast options to its menu. The change would be implemented in the Chicago market, and eventually, would be added at all locations.[45]
Peet's Coffee started formulating the blend in 2014 and first added it to its coffeebar menu in summer 2015. In July 2016, Peet's released a complementary line of bottled cold brew coffee to 400 locations in the San Francisco area including Peet's coffeebars and grocery stores. Peet's coldbrew was initially offered in three flavors: Baridi Black, Coffee au Lait, and Dark Chocolate.[46]Almond Milk was added to the line of bottled cold brew in May 2017.[47]
In December 2016, Peet's added a Slow Bar to its newest D.C. coffeebar, featuring French press, pour-over and siphon brewing methods.[48]
Influence
When the three founders of Starbucks were looking to start their company, they contacted Peet, who "became like a father mentor" to them. He allowed the three young men to copy the layout of his store and shared his suppliers.[49][50][51]
Peet's has a devoted following, sometimes known as "Peetniks", a portmanteau of Peets and beatniks.[52]
Peet's was one of the first coffee bean and brewed coffee retailers to offer specialty grade coffee, and to roast the beans longer, producing a liquor that is darker, more bitter, with less of the sour taste of the coffees offered in the US at the time. Peet's is commonly regarded as one of the founding businesses in the gourmet coffee trade.
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1971, and is currently the world's largest coffeehouse chain.
Tully's Coffee is an American specialty coffee manufacturing brand owned by Keurig Dr Pepper, which acquired Tully's brand and wholesale business in 2009.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is an American coffee chain founded in 1963. It is owned and operated by International Coffee & Tea, LLC, which has its corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
Gerald Baldwin is an American businessman. He and two other entrepreneurs, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl, founded Starbucks in Seattle, in 1971. He is a Sonoma Valley vintner, and co-founder of J. Baldwin Wines.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters is a coffee roaster and retailer based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The chain's flagship café and roastery opened in 1999. Three other cafes, a roastery and a tasting annex have since opened in Portland, as well as locations in Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles,. Stumptown is owned by Peet's Coffee, which in turn is owned by JAB Holding Company. The company was an early innovator with cold brew coffee in nitro cans and have continued to develop other cold brew product innovations.
Diedrich Coffee was a coffee company based in Irvine, CA. Its first coffee house in Orange County, California was opened in 1972.
Intelligentsia Coffee is an American coffee roasting company and retailer based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1995 by Doug Zell and Emily Mange, Intelligentsia is considered a major representative of third wave coffee. In 2015, Peet's Coffee & Tea acquired a majority stake in the company.
Alfred H. Peet was a Dutch-American entrepreneur and the founder of Peet's Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, California, in 1966. Peet is widely credited with starting the specialty coffee revolution in the US. Among coffee historians, Peet has been called "the Dutchman who taught America how to drink coffee." Peet taught his style of roasting beans to Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker, who, with his blessing, took the technique to Seattle and founded Starbucks in 1971. Peet later distanced himself, however, from the Starbucks trio as they experimented with ultra-dark roasts. "Baldwin never learned anything from me," Peet was later quoted as saying.
Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-op is a Canadian importer of fair trade coffee, tea, sugar, and chocolate. Based in Grand Pré, Nova Scotia, Just Us! products are sold throughout Canada, typically in shops specializing in fair trade goods such as Ten Thousand Villages. Their motto is “People and the Planet before Profits”.
The Gourmet Ghetto is a colloquial name for the business district of the North Berkeley neighborhood in the city of Berkeley, California, known as the birthplace of California cuisine. Other developments that can be traced to this neighborhood include specialty coffee, the farm-to-table and local food movements, the rise to popularity in the U.S. of chocolate truffles and baguettes, the popularization of the premium restaurant designed around an open kitchen, and the California pizza made with local produce. After coalescing in the mid-1970s as a culinary destination, the neighborhood received its "Gourmet Ghetto" nickname in the late 1970s from comedian Darryl Henriques. Early, founding influences were Peet's Coffee, Chez Panisse and the Cheese Board Collective. Alice Medrich began her chain of Cocolat chocolate stores there.
Third-wave coffee is a movement in coffee marketing emphasizing high quality. Beans are typically sourced from individual farms and are roasted more lightly to bring out their distinctive flavors. Though the term was coined in 1999, the approach originated in the 1970s, with roasters such as the Coffee Connection.
Blue Bottle Coffee, Inc., is a coffee roaster and retailer once headquartered in Oakland, California, United States. In 2017, a majority stake in the company was acquired by Nestlé (68%). It is a major player in third wave coffee. The company focuses on single-origin beans.
Seattle is regarded as a world center for coffee roasting and coffee supply chain management. Related to this, many of the city's inhabitants are coffee enthusiasts; the city is known for its prominent coffee culture and numerous coffeehouses.
Union Hand-Roasted Coffee is a privately owned British coffee roasting business based in East London, United Kingdom. The company was founded in 2001 by Jeremy Torz and Steven Macatonia. Coffee House says the company "effectively bridges the definitions of independent and mainstream" as they work according to craft principles while still selling their products in supermarkets.
JAB Holding Company is a German conglomerate, headquartered in Luxembourg, that includes investments in companies operating in the areas of consumer goods, coffee, luxury fashion, animal health, and fast food, among others.
A Twosome Place (Korean: 투썸플레이스), is a premium dessert cafe and coffee franchise in South Korea. It was founded in 2002 in Sinchon and operates more than 1,640 stores nationwide as of the end of 2023. After launching the franchise business in 2008, CJ Foodville's coffee division was spun off and incorporated in February 2018, and was acquired by US private equity firm Carlyle Group in 2021.
JDE Peet's N.V. is an American-Dutch company that owns beverage brands, mostly of coffee, tea and hot chocolate. It was formed in 2015 following the merger of the coffee division of Mondelez International with Douwe Egberts as Jacobs Douwe Egberts. The stock of JDE Peet's is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange.
Gregorys Coffee is a New York-based coffee roaster and retailer. Aside from a range of coffee and tea choices, Gregorys Coffee also offers pastries, packaged foods, and a plant-based meal selection curated by an in-house registered dietitian that are prepared from scratch daily.
Starbucks Reserve is a program by the international coffeehouse chain Starbucks. The program involves operation of worldwide roasteries; currently seven are in operation. Also part of the program are 28 coffee bars preparing Starbucks Reserve products, what Starbucks considers its rarest and best-quality coffees, usually single-origin coffees. Some Starbucks Reserve coffee is also sold in about 1,500 of the chain's traditional outlets.
Public Domain Coffee is a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon. Coffee Bean International opened the cafe in 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
