Interesting Trivia And Facts About Seattle’s Best
Interesting Trivia And Facts About Seattle’s Best
If you’re a lover of coffee, and who isn’t, then you can be happy to know that Seattle’s Best brand coffee is actually a subsidiary of the company Starbucks. While this may not mean that the coffee is the same, but it means that the company uses many of the same scrupulous practices for selecting the best beans. A now common practice with specialty coffees that Seattle’s Best did from the beginning.
The company itself began in the 1970′s, and originally began as a coffee and ice cream shop called Wet Whisker. The original founder, Jim Stewart who bought his first coffee roaster from a peanut vendor. His second year in business and he had already sold close to 500 lbs in coffee. This roaster, though no longer owned or used by Seattle’s Best Coffee, is still operated today. In 1983, Stewart decided to change the company name to Stewart Brothers Coffee, and with his brother Dave, opened more shops all over Seattle.
It wouldn’t be until 1991, after winning a local competition, that Stewart renamed the company to Seattle’s Best Coffee. In the same year, the company was sold to investors who also owned Torrefazione Italia, which is now known for their coffee beans sold under the Starbucks name, though the Seattle’s Best Brand would remain a separate entity. In 1998, the company would introduce Organic coffees to their already much popular lines, and would begin franchising under the name Seattle Coffee Company, after being sold to the franchising company AFC. This would bring the company out of Seattle, spreading chains not only nationwide, but within 11 different countries too.
Seattle’s Best Coffee is the second largest coffee bean roaster in the U.S., it’s also the second largest retailer. It also boasts the second largest wholesaler of specialty coffees in the U.S. too. With its main distribution, found in retail coffee locations and select food industries, like Burger King, J.C. Penny’s, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Blenz Coffee in Canada. Also as of 2011, you can also now find Seattle’s Best Coffee on all Delta Connection flights.
In 2010, Starbucks attempted to rebrand Seattle’s Best Coffee, and change its logo to appear more generic. However, the public highly revoked this change, and this Starbucks was forced to cancel the label redesign. Not much has changed since the beginning days of the company, though it changed hands a few times, and technically owned by Starbucks twice in its history. The way the coffee was made, hand selected and hand roasted, has never changed.