The Product Move
La Colombe, the Philadelphia-based coffee roaster owned by Chobani since 2023, is extending its ready-to-drink portfolio into matcha with a three-SKU canned latte lineup hitting major retailers nationwide in September 2026. The launch marks the brand's first significant category expansion beyond coffee in its three-decade history and signals a broader ambition under Chobani's ownership to build a multi-beverage RTD platform.
The new line — Everyday Matcha Latte, Strawberry Matcha Latte, and Vanilla Matcha Latte — arrives in 11-oz cans. Each unit delivers 65 milligrams of natural caffeine and is positioned as a good source of protein. Ingredients include lactose-free whole milk sourced from Michigan farms and single-origin matcha from Japan, a provenance pitch aimed squarely at premium-tier consumers.
The Numbers Behind the Launch
The decision to move matcha into the RTD aisle is grounded in La Colombe's own café data. The company reports matcha sales across its café network — locations in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, and Washington, D.C. — have grown 188% since 2023. That internal signal aligns with broader category momentum: matcha has been among the fastest-growing flavour profiles in the premium cold beverage segment, drawing consumers who want functional, naturally caffeinated alternatives to traditional coffee-forward SKUs.
La Colombe's original RTD pivot came more than a decade ago with the Draft Latte, widely credited with elevating consumer expectations for canned coffee. That product helped establish the brand as a category architect rather than a follower, and the company is invoking the same positioning logic with the matcha launch. Niel Sandfort, Chief Innovation Officer at Chobani and La Colombe, framed the expansion as a quality-floor argument for an underdeveloped aisle set. "We challenged ourselves to create a product with the highest quality ingredients that raises the bar for what consumers should expect from RTD matcha," Sandfort said. "The result is a thoughtfully crafted matcha latte made with exceptional ingredients and the same care and precision we bring to every beverage."
What It Means for the RTD Shelf
For retail buyers and foodservice distributors, the launch represents a credible premium entry into a ready-to-drink beverage segment that has, until recently, been dominated by green-tea-flavored extensions from mainstream soft-drink brands rather than genuine matcha-forward products. La Colombe's café heritage and ingredient transparency — named origin country, named milk source — position the SKUs closer to the refrigerated craft coffee tier than the ambient tea aisle.
Chobani's ownership adds meaningful distribution muscle. The yogurt-and-nutrition giant has retail relationships across mass, grocery, and club channels that La Colombe's independent café roots could not fully access. That infrastructure, combined with growing consumer demand for functional RTD options, makes the matcha lineup a logical test of whether La Colombe's brand equity travels beyond coffee into adjacent premium beverage occasions. The products are available online and at major retailers starting this month.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
