Nestle offloads Chameleon Organic Coffee brand to sharpen  focus on leading brands

US-Swiss multinational food and drink company, Nestlé, has divested the Chameleon Organic Coffee brand to an impact-focused food and beverage brand platform, Systm Foods, for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in 2010, Texas-based Chameleon has become a leading organic cold brew brand in the U.S. Its current portfolio consists of multi-serve concentrates and single-serve RTD products.

According to Systm Foods, Chameleon supports its product ethos by championing better-for-you ingredients, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility.

The sale of Chameleon comes five years after Nestlé purchased the brand and is part of an ongoing portfolio review process aimed at generating more growth in trendier categories.

The company added that the transaction aligns with Systm Foods’ strategic goal of adding high-quality, plant-based, and innovative daily-use products to their omnichannel platform.

While the sale of Chameleon pales in comparison to some of the multibillion-dollar divestitures by Nestlé in recent years, it’s the latest evidence that the company is far from over in repositioning itself for the future, according to FoodDive.

Since 2017, Switzerland-based Nestlé has closed or announced more than 75 transactions as it jettisons slower-growing, less profitable brands like its confections and ice cream businesses in the US and the majority of its struggling North American bottled waters operation.

At the same time, it has pumped in investments to the businesses that are more attuned to changing consumer tastes, including coffee, pet food, nutrition, health, and wellness.

The owner of Taster’s Choice and Nespresso bulked up its presence on the premium side by acquiring a stake in popular coffee shop chain Blue Bottle and snapping up Chameleon in 2017.

In 2018, it paid US$7.15 billion to Starbucks to sell the chain’s coffee beans and drinks in grocery stores and other outlets around the world.

The moves nestle has made come on the heels of a report from Statista that projects that the Cold brew coffee market which stood at around US$166 million in 2017 will increase to around US$944.16 million by 2025.

Considering the data report from Statista, cold brew coffee has been among the fastest-growing beverage categories, and the acquisition of Chameleon will give its new owners a major presence in the space.

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