Click here for Part I, Part II & Part III

Bringing together the best of modern and ancient coffee roasting traditions

Todd Carmichael is the co-founder and CEO of La Colombe Coffee Roasters, a coffee chain headquartered in Philadelphia. Todd and La Colombe president JB Iberti founded the company in 1994, on a mission to bring better coffee to the United States through direct trade sourcing and an eye for the best aspects of ancient and modern coffee roasting traditions around the world. In the years since, La Colombe has expanded beyond in its initial café in Philadelphia and into locations in New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles—with more on the way.

Todd is also an adventure traveler and television personality. In 2008, he became the first American to complete a solo trek across Antarctica to the South Pole—on foot and with no assistance—breaking the World Speed Record. His trek was the subject of the documentary film Race to the Bottom of the Earth. Additionally, Todd currently hosts the Travel Channel’s Dangerous Grounds and Uncommon Grounds, in which he travels to remote areas of the world to sample unique coffees, which he sources for La Colombe. He has been named Esquire Magazine’s “American of the Year” and Philadelphia Magazine’s “Person of the Year”, as well as Food Republic’s #1 most influential figure in its Coffee Power Ranking.

EDWIN WARFIELD: The business of coffee has changed so much—and direct sourcing has grown exponentially—since you first started in 1994. Where do you expect the industry and La Colombe to go next?

TODD CARMICHAEL: Did you know that—I would say, over the last six months—68% of all the coffees that are consumed on premise at La Colombe cafés, and that’s 30 cafés across the United States, is cold? It's cold. Now, the dominant way of drinking coffee used to be hot, but now that's the minority, and this is something that's massively significant, and it's changing the way we interact with our coffee. It changes expectations: people want it quicker—because when you get a cold coffee, that's how you get it: fast—so people expect the café experience to be a super quick experience—so, in other words, they’re there to have some sort of experience—but it also disengages the beverage from the heat, and once you do that it can become an RTD, a ready-to-drink. Now, we're into this age where coffee’s cold, it's mobile, and obviously needs to be clean label, and the sort of coffees that we discovered in the third wave.

I think that the most interesting thing about La Colombe right now is its white space. We can talk about how we got here, but the most interesting thing is the potential in the future. They are very few products that are of this significance. In other words: this is coffee, man. We drink more coffee than we drink beer, wine, soda, juice—all of the fluids except water—combined. We drink more coffee. We drink more coffee of this nature: it’s a crafted drink, where milk is involved. This is a product with a massive bandwidth that's going through a massive revolution, and we’re at the head of it. We’re in the cutting edge of everything that is the next generation of coffee. Some people say that you can account me for the invention of the third wave, but categorically, hands down, we own the fourth wave, and it was the biggest, biggest one.

And so you go, “yeah, okay, we're doing six times the amount of revenue that we did three years ago.” Okay, these are the kind of the basic mechanics of a business, but the real, real beautiful piece is where we’re going. And if you look at the company, how it's situated, and how it's actually matured and able to turn the corner in almost every environment, like from executive staff down to managers and directors, to way we’re a omnichannel business with five channels and ten departments: this degree of sophistication that we have for a company that started with two guys is pretty shocking. And you put all that together and the future is looking really good.

I think that now that we've broken this membrane, we've taken two ancient products. Milk is old. Milk has been around a long time—I don't even know when, but it's donkeys, right? Coffee, same thing. Two ancient products. And what happens is when you have ancient products, people stop innovating, because they just assume that someone should have innovated it by now, so it can't possibly be done. But then we did. Now, with that membrane broken, you’re going to start to see innovation hit that space that will be mind-blowing. I think, ultimately, everything that you see on a menu—from an espresso to a cortado to whatever—any menu item, hot or cold, will be available through multi-channel: grocery, convenience, club, natural—because we have the technology to do it.

If you take aluminum and silicide, and you put them together, it creates sand. The sand is pretty good for the environment. It also generates massive amounts of heat. Imagine a core inside of a can with aluminum, selenide, [Todd makes “popping” sound] you get—what? Hot latte, hot cappuccino, or hot coffee. This will happen. Someone will take this to market. There are lots of us working on it; it will happen.

The second is you look at all the derivatives you can do with the draft latte on. I think that K-Cup environment is totally ripe. It’s fat and flat, it’s going nowhere, everyone knows it tastes like whatever and you’re punching mother nature in the gut every time you consume one—this is just ripe for someone to come and just turn that applecart over. You need to just approach it in a little different way.

I think that that next wave, the fifth wave, is when every single arena—every channel that leads to you to consume your coffee—will be flipped on its ear. That’s going to be really exciting. And hopefully I’ll be around for it; hopefully, I’ll cause most of it.

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ABOUT NEWMARK KNIGHT FRANK

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With roots dating back to 1929, NKF's strong foundation makes it one of the most trusted names in commercial real estate. NKF's full-service platform comprises BGC's real estate services segment, offering commercial real estate tenants, landlords, investors and developers a wide range of services including leasing; capital markets services, including investment sales, debt placement, appraisal, and valuation services; commercial mortgage brokerage services; as well as corporate advisory services, consulting, project and development management, and property and corporate facilities management services. For further information, visit www.ngkf.com.

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Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

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