Third-wave coffee roasters such as Intelligentsia, Stumptown and Blue Bottle grew from local brands to national power players. Today, a new class of coffee innovators is emerging, reports The Wall Street Journal. Continuing to transform the ongoing coffee culture, new brands are focusing even more on sustainability and sourcing beans from “the farthest corners of the earth.” Not only that, but these hyperlocal coffee brands are being propelled by coffee gurus who worked previously at third wave roasters such as Stumptown and many more.
The source reports that one driving factor of independent cafes and roasters is the ease of sourcing “obscure, overlooked coffees.”
Earlier this year VendingMarketWatch reported how local coffee brands are gaining in the OCS industry. In last year’s State of the Coffee Service report, Automatic Merchandiser found that 30 percent of operators said at least 5 percent of their net coffee service sales are made up of local brands. Additionally, 13.5 percent of those respondents said that local coffee brands are their top-selling OCS product. OCS operators found that locations like local coffee brands because they oftentimes support the local community and have a loyal following.
