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Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle
- diogenescynic 9y agoThat's a major bummer. Nestle is one of the most evil companies there is--their CEO once said water isn't a human right. Nestle uses cocoa from slave labor and bottle water in drought stricken communities and national forests on expired permits, and do shady stuff like hiring the regulator who gave them their water license. Very few companies are as vile and amoral as Nestle. Unfortunately, this will taint Blue Bottle's 'premium' experience for me. I guess I'll go to Philz instead.
- dkhenry 9y agoYou can do much better the Philz, depending on where you are at there are lots of good options. In you're in the bay area look up Four Barrel, they roast great beans and their SF coffee shop is really nice.
- Eridrus 9y agoI miss Four Barrell since moving out of SF. I don't really understand why they don't seem to be doing as well as Blue Bottle or Stumptown or even Ritual.
- spike021 9y agoWhat about Sightglass?
- alonmower 9y agoVerve is also really good and just opened an SF location
- Eridrus 9y agoThat list is entirely based on my personal preference for coffee which does not particularly like Sightglass or Verve. There is no objectivity here :)
- spike021 9y agoHeh, no worries ;)
- santaclaus 9y ago> Sightglass I'm serious considering leaving my current job because the office coffee moved from Sightglass to some over-roasted junk from somewhere in Marin county...
- spike021 9y agoI'm close to considering the same thing because the two closest coffee shops to my office in SF are both Starbucks... I guess there's Philz a bit further, or Blue Bottle even more further.. but those are hardly convenient and Philz isn't great anyway.
- zjaffee 9y agoThere are a few coffeeshops in LA that brew four barrel coffee, I think it's a result of how Four Barrel mostly just sells beans instead of opening their own shops everywhere. Additionally, Stumptown as well as Intellegencia are both owned by the same private equity firm that owns Peet's, Blue Bottle also got a ton of outside investment to allow them to grow as rapidly as they did, in addition to having a successful business of delivering their cold brew to peoples homes. The thing about the food industry is that it has really high startup costs that take a very long time to pay off, so opening up a new store using the profits from existing stores isn't really all that easy to do without having a hundreds of stores already.
- taheca 9y agoquick plug for Equator Coffee. Their stuff is great. Woman owned business based in Mill Valley, CA
- davehtaylor 9y agoI've really been enjoying Black Powder
- santaclaus 9y agoI wish counter culture had cafes in the Bay -- they have a huge roasting center in Emeryville and their beans are delicious.
- nielsbot 9y agoI have seen their coffee being served at various cafés in SF..
- mrgordon 9y agoEveryone is welcome to a preference of course, but I wonder why you assert Four Barrel is "much better" than Philz. If we're talking about non-espresso drinks, I know many people who prefer Philz. They have a huge variety of custom roasts and make remarkable ice coffee with cream. I like Four Barrel too, just surprised to see Philz dismissed out of hand. Most people who come to visit me in San Francisco end up going home with a bag of Philz' beans after trying a bunch of the third wave shops.
- ceejayoz 9y agoDon't forget pushing "free" baby formula on new mothers in developing countries, so their milk supply dries up.
- artursapek 9y agoI imagine the blue bottle customer base is made up of the type of people who would boycott over something like this.
- photoJ 9y agoPity that all customer bases weren't made up of people who would boycott a company of such a tactic.
- srtjstjsj 9y agoWhy? Blue Bottle customers are hipsters who like to pay extra for faux fancy goods. Why would they be especially likely to disacommodate themselves to benefit faraway people?
- cortesoft 9y agoYeah, that was pretty awful. They pushed formula as being more healthy, which it isn't, and it was made extra bad because they did so in countries that didn't have clean water. Adults in those countries have built up somewhat of an immunity to the diseases in the water, but infants don't have that (they get it from their mother's milk!) So parents mixed the water with the formula, giving their infants diseases they didn't have any protection against because they didn't get any antibodies from their mother's milk
- mrgordon 9y agoYou wrote this in past tense but sadly they're still doing it :(
- taheca 9y agoI posted this above a few times, thanks for reinforcing this with your own post. This is HEINOUS behavior, and the primary reason I won't support any Nestle company or product.
- marian0_ 9y agoDon't hate the player, hate the game.
- cbcoutinho 9y agoI think the water quote is unfair, that's not exactly what he said. If you watch the interview of him on his desk, which is what I think you're referencing, he says there should be a difference between what a person needs and what you should be able to treat as a commodity. Obviously Nestle would love to sell the water out from under you, but to say that he doesn't think people deserve _any_ water as a right is disingenuous. His specific number could be argued - I don't remember what it was, but I think it was in the liters per day. Regardless, I think it's interesting to think about the idea that the commoditization of something begins after a certain amount, unlike chocolate for example. That being said, I wouldn't trust the current political climate to be able to come up with a reasonable number here
- fourstar 9y agoI don't know how you think Philz is any different. They're a chain with the same desired path to global domination in the coffee space as any other business. And their coffee is awful.
- acchow 9y agoPhilz is not really an alternative to Blue Bottle - they don't roast their own beans, they don't make espresso.
- mrgordon 9y agoThis is quite inaccurate. From Philz' website: "Here at Philz, we roast our own coffees at our roasting plant in Oakland, California." https://www.philzcoffee.com/our-coffee https://www.philzcoffee.com/our-coffee They obviously don't do espresso drinks but there are about 1,000 places in San Francisco that do (Four Barrel, Ritual, Stanza, etc. etc.)
- throwaway0255 9y agoCounterpoint: Saying water isn't a human right is different than saying not everyone should have access to water. I generally agree that water isn't a right. I think it's a misuse of the word "right" and a misapplication of the concept of a "right". Rights define what you're free to do for yourself, and the various ways in which those freedoms can't be infringed upon by others. For example, you have a right to free speech and people can't infringe on that. You have a right to not be tortured and people can't infringe on that. In the US, if the government is going to take your property or jail you as punishment for a crime, you have a right to a fair trial first before they can do that to you. There's a distinction between that and things like water and healthcare. One is a list of rights, and the other is a list of things people generally need to live a happy and healthy life. If we're going to dilute the definition of "right" down to that degree, why don't we just throw in housing and free trips for vacation and a loving partner while we're at it? South Africa has housing as a right in their constitution. They also have 200,000 homeless people. So who's infringing on their rights? Every citizen of South Africa? The UN General Assembly declared water a human right. The world also has close to a billion people who don't have access to clean drinking water. Who's infringing on their rights? Are you? Rights aren't about what resources (time, money, commodities, services, etc) you're free to take from others. When you start defining rights that way, rights all start contradicting each other. What about a doctor's freedom to choose who they perform surgery on? What about your freedom to live a life not solely dedicated to plumbing in Gabon?
- baddox 9y agoYou're explicitly making a semantic argument. When people say "water is a human right" or "Internet is a human right," all they mean is that governments should use public funds to improve (or guarantee) access to those things. Of course you're correct about the way the word "right" is generally used in philosophy and ethics. But that's absolutely not the definition being used here.
- throwaway0255 9y agoIt's exactly a matter of semantics. Condemning people for saying water isn't a human right is also a matter of semantics. The Nestle CEO was using the correct definition of "human right". Now people are going to attribute their inaccurate definition of the term to his statements, and condemn him for it (like the parent comment did). It's all semantics. Now how about we start using the word correctly so we can avoid this? Or how about the liberals condemning him try being intellectually honest for once, and stop deliberately and knowingly misinterpreting what he said just because it's convenient for the argument they're trying to make?
- blhack 9y agoJust for completeness, this is what the CEO of nestle believes regarding water being a human right: http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle-chairman-peter-brabeck-letmathe-believes-water-is-a-human-right http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle...
- tanilama 9y agoBlue Bottle sucks. Line is long, coffee is so-so.
- Exuma 9y agoFuck Nestle
- mrleiter 9y agoAs this thread will ultimately will end up discussing the corporate evil that Nestlé apparently is, I want to, for the sake of the discussion, point out the reasonableness of the CEOs statement regarding water as a human right: He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. Of course a state can also do this and in my opinion should, but of course as a company they want to fill this role. If water is treated as a market asset then more investment will happen (which can also happen through a state entity) - a good thing. In a later video, after the 2005 video was a total PR disaster, he tries to clarify his argument by saying that water should be a human right to humans who need it for living, but not for gardening or washing a car. To me that seems like a valid case.
- saint_fiasco 9y agoThat sounds fair. After all, you can't use food stamps to feed your cattle so why should government subsidize the water for agriculture?
- Alex3917 9y ago> He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. Sounds like a good case for cap-and-trade. That is, don't allow people to withdraw groundwater faster than it's being replenished, and don't allow people to withdraw enough surface water to harm fish populations. And then let folks trade their allocations.
- jakelarkin 9y agorather have underpriced water be available to people for gardening, washing cars, swimming pools than it be given away for free in corrupt government contracts to a mega-corporation so they can grow rice in the California desert or bottle ground water and sell it at inflated prices.
- ShabbosGoy 9y agoYou didn't hear it from me, but the first person to make a market for water futures will be very wealthy.
- mattl 9y agoThe Wikipedia article about the 40 year boycott of Nestle has some more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott
- scottlegrand2 9y agoThere's always Verve... https://www.vervecoffee.com https://www.vervecoffee.com
- ovao 9y agoThere is! But not within walking distance of my office, unfortunately (I'm in L.A.). Blue Bottle is just down the street, and Stumptown is just too far to realistically walk to on a short coffee break-type timetable. So this news is a little disappointing, but I'm hopeful nothing at my local cafe will drastically change for at least the next several months. I am, however, curious to see what impact this will have on the bean and roast quality.
- TaylorGood 9y agoWell, and how many are conscious of the fact Nestle owns Nespresso? You're basically drinking mediocre folgers in a pod and paying the premium. No amount of branding will divert from the fact that local, organic alternatives can be had for less.
- giarc 9y agoJust because a company owns two of the same thing, doesn't make them the same. Using that logic, Blue Bottle is now just Folgers.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- SandersAK 9y agoAll the people in this thread arguing about the "right" of water should sign a waiver of liability, then abstain from water for a few days to show how it's not a right, but just "a nice thing someone should have."
- fonnesbeck 9y agoGood coffee does not scale.
- ovao 9y agoI think it's reasonably fair to say that so far it hasn't, but could it? If not, to what would you attribute the fundamental roadblock? I'd argue consumers themselves, but I don't know if that's really just a cop-out or not.
- cwkoss 9y agoEven if you buy the best X% of a crop, as scale increases, quality will go down. Unless a significant portion of profits are directed towards the improvement of farming methods, scale tends to decrease quality.
- tetrep 9y agoAre you saying that supply can't scale to demand? Because what you've described, a limited supply and increasing demand, is commonly solved by increasing supply. Unless we're at 100% coffee output for the Earth, which I don't think we currently are.
- cwkoss 9y agoI'm saying that supply of highest-quality coffee may be less elastic than demand. Certainly we could grow more coffee, and that would likely increase net output of high quality coffee. However, if a company is buying the 'best 10%' of coffee and need to double their output, it is more likely that they buy 80th-90th percentile coffee than reinvest their profits into increase the quality that tranche of coffee to meet that of the top 10%. Even if a company chose to do this, the amount of time it takes to deploy capital in agriculture (~1yr+) is likely much less than the amount of time it takes to deploy capital in manufacturing (months), which effectively would cap growth rate.
- 9y ago
- dylanz 9y agoNestlé has been one company I've consciously put effort into "not" buying products from, due to their track record concerning their formula in Africa (and other similar issues). That said, they are a beast and I probably buy a lot of Nestlé products without even knowing it. I still buy Nestlé Holloween candy for kids during the holiday, and I definitely eat my fair share of Butterfingers and Kit Kat's. That said, I'll most likely pass up Blue Bottle now even though their affogatos are amazing.
- pdog 9y ago> The rapidly expanding niche accounts for 15 to 20 percent of coffee consumed in the United States, according to the Specialty Coffee Association. One in every five or six cups of coffee is Blue Bottle or "third-wave specialty" coffee? This simply can't be true considering the scale of Starbucks, McDonald's, and Dunkin' Donuts, let alone brewing at home and coffee consumed at diners and non-specialty restaurants. I'm surprised the Times would cite the SCAA so uncritically.
- subnaught 9y agoI think it's pretty clear that the article intends "rapidly expanding niche" to refer to all of "third-wave specialty coffee," not just Blue Bottle.
- sergers 9y agoThat is still hard to fathom 20% of coffee sales
- spaceflunky 9y agoI agree with this. Think of the mid to low-tier restaurants and the coffee the serve. Unless I'm in some big city, most of time I'm just getting whatever bulk coffee they happened to buy from some wholesaler. They arent serving me $18/lb coffee from some boutique farm in Nicaragua.
- biggc 9y agoMaybe by dollar amount spent?
- david-cako 9y agoHard to believe. Specialty coffee costs the same as whatever shit you can buy at Starbucks.
- cwilson 9y agoThis is very surprising, as last time I did research on this subject I remember seeing that Starbucks alone owned 40%+ of the "single cup" coffee market share. The runner up was the McDonalds/Duncan "lower end" group of coffee sales. Specialty coffee was great for the margins, but the market-share was not even close to the numbers being reported in this article.
- grrrtttt 9y agoWhile many of us do recall soundbites of the former Chairman and CEO of Nestlé about water, it should probably be noted that he is no longer in either role and is not a member of their Board of Directors. The new CEO (Mark Schneider) was brought in as an 'outsider' and while he also remains under some activist investor pressure is making some effort to clean shop and modernize their business. I'm interested to see what comes of this, and particularly whether Blue Bottle can actually benefit from Nestlé's technical expertise in coffee, which so many of the 'third-wave brands' struggle with.
- diogenescynic 9y agoThis is the first comment you've ever made and it's basically PR handwaving away Nestle's history of human rights atrocities. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a shill account.
- dochtman 9y agoThere's a great episode of the Startup podcast (which is generally quite good, particularly the early seasons) about one of the artisanal coffee producers that sells to Blue Bottle: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/building-perfect-cup-coffee/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/building-perfect-cup-coffee/
- utopkara 9y agoThanks for the heads up. I guess it is other coffee shops for me from now on.
- what-no-tests 9y agoCoffee is cultural appropriation.
- codecamper 9y agoSort of defeats the point of visiting your friendly neighborhood non corporate cafe. I was even willing to drink coffee that came out of a rodents butt to show my willingness to be non corporate & local. Forget that! It's Dunkin coffee for me from now on.