I’ve known Annie for a while, she’s a fantastic entrepreneur and along with her team she’s built a great product and supply chain capable of delivering tens of millions of cans per year, and has already signed up some great customers. We think we can take these foundations and supercharge them with the addition of the Grind brand, and of course, by adding Grind coffee to the new cans we think they’ll taste even better! I’m really excited for Annie and her team to join Grind and lead this new charge.” A joint statement from Abrahamovitch and Annie Mitchell, who takes on the role of Head of Grocery & B2B at Grind, said the company plans to turn Grind into the ‘leading challenger brand’ in the RTD coffee market ‘which is dominated by mass market and low-quality products’. David Abrahamovitch, Grind’s Founder & CEO commented: “Grind had a fantastic 2022, and it’s great to start 2023 with a bang, announcing another major funding round and the acquisition of Bottleshot Coffee.

Bottleshot Coffee was founded by Annie Mitchell and Charlotte Dales in 2019. It is the first and only canned coffee to win a Great Taste award and it can be found in retailers like Wholefoods, Ocado and WH Smith, and on Virgin Airlines. In 2022, the business was also featured on the entrepreneurial Dragon’s Den, where Mitchell and Dales received an investment offer from ‘Dragon’ Peter Jones. Launchedin 2019, Bottleshot Coffee is currently availableatseveral UK retailers including Wholefoods, Ocado and WH Smith, as well as on boardVirgin Atlantic flights. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Annie has built a great product and supply chain capable of delivering tens of millions of cans per year and has already signed up some great customers. We think we can take these foundations and supercharge them with the addition of the Grind brand,” Abrahamovitch added. London-based boutique cafégroup Grind is seeking growth in the‘underdeveloped’ UK ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee market following its acquisition ofBottleshot Coffee.

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For a while, I’ve believed that the ready-to-drink coffee market is quite under-developed in the UK, particularly compared to the US, and there still isn’t anyone with a real coffee pedigree making a canned coffee product which actually tastes like real coffee, in part because it can be technically quite difficult to get right. In addition, we recently completed the acquisition of Bottleshot coffee to accelerate our entry in the ready-to-drink coffee space, and we’ll be launching our new range of Grind cans very soon!

The canned coffee segment is ever-growing (as you may have read in CanTech‘s February 2023 insight), and while the UK and Europe have some catching up to do with Asia Pacific and North America, it seems news like the above will spur new innovations and partnerships. Canned coffee continues to stand out as a versatile, sustainable choice for both on-the-go and at-home consumption. As part of the acquisition, Bottleshot’s Annie Mitchell and Leonora Berend will join Grind to lead its push into the ready-to-drink coffee space, and into grocery and supermarkets for canned coffee, coffee pods and bean and ground coffee. Founded in 2018 by Annie Mitchell and Charlotte Dale, Bottleshot was created to take advantage of a gap in the cold brew market. The founders predicted a growing trend for the drinks already experienced in the US, where 40% of ready-to-drink coffee products are cold brew products. As part of the acquisition, Bottleshot Coffee’s CEO Annie Mitchell and Chief Operating Officer Leonora Berend will join Grind to lead its push into the UK retailsegment. As boutique hospitality group Grind sets its sights on the US market and further growth for its direct-to-consumer business, World Coffee Portal speaks with founder and CEO David Abrahamovitch about the brand’s ongoing evolution, teaming up with Soho House and staying true to its London roots

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David Abrahamovitch, Grind’s founder and CEO, commented: “Grind had a fantastic 2022, and it’s great to start 2023 with a bang, announcing another major funding round and the acquisition of Bottleshot Coffee. For a while, I’ve believed that the ready-to-drink coffee market is quite under-developed in the UK, particularly compared to the US, and there still isn’t anyone with a real coffee pedigree making a canned coffee product using speciality-grade coffee which actually tastes like real coffee, in part because it can be technically quite difficult to get right. Annie Mitchell, founder of Bottleshot and now head of grocery and B2B at Grind, added: “We are thrilled to be joining the Grind team. We’ve watched with admiration as Grind has applied its coffee expertise and brand to the Nespresso pod sector, creating the pod challenger brand in the category. As Grind has done with pods, at Bottleshot, we’ve spent the last few years building a best-in-class product and supply chain. We believe that by adding this to the well-loved and well-known Grind brand, and with the support of the Grind roastery and the wider Grind business we think we can achieve our goal much faster to achieve the same in the ready-to-drink coffee space – turning Grind cans into the leading challenger brand in a sector which is dominated by mass market and low-quality products.”

We also supply some of the world’s leading venues, most notably Soho House, who we supply worldwide. So, while the scope and scale of what we do has grown enormously, we’re still proud to be a very coffee-focused business, which was born and continues to be shaped by London, the best city in the world! We think we can take these foundations and supercharge them with the addition of the Grind brand, and of course, by adding Grind coffee to the new cans we think they’ll taste even better! I’m really excited for Annie and her team to join Grind and lead this new charge.” The terms of the deal will see the Bottleshot Coffee brand gradually discontinuedand replaced with Grind-brandedRTD coffee cans. How did your partnerships with Soho House develop and what have been some of the business benefits?We’ve got a huge amount going on: we just launched a new store in St Pancras station, right next to the Eurostar terminal, and we’ll open at least one more location this year. We also just launched our coffee pods and beans in Waitrose supermarkets and plan to launch into other major retailers. I’m remembering one of my early CanTech blogs which featured an aesthetically pleasing tin of Grind coffee beans, as news arrives that the London-based brand has completed the acquisition of ready-to-drink canned coffee company, Bottleshot Coffee. The brands cold brew products are also available through Whole Foods and are served restaurant and members club Soho House.