Chameleon Cold Brew

History

Chameleon Cold-Brew was founded in 2010 by Chris Campbell. Campbell holds an MBA from Rice University and is a graduate of the University of Texas, working as a consultant in the field of hospitality management prior to Chameleon Cold-Brew. Campbell was a busy professional that depended on coffee to keep him fueled and alert. He grew into a self-proclaimed coffee junkie and was intrigued by the promise of cold-brewed coffee but never tasted anything up to his standards. Campbell left his corporate job and brought on master coffee craftsman R.C. Beall, a local icon in Austin’s craft coffee scene and expert in bean sourcing, roasting and brewing. The company grew after months of experimenting with various brewing methods such as time and temperature, along with various blends and water, leading to its first products.

Chameleon Cold-Brew debuted locally in the Austin market in 2011, selling at The Whip In located on the south side of Austin. It was able to gain traction in the marketplace by cutting deals with local vendors such as Texafrance who bottled the product for the company. By 2012, the company had its products in 225 stores in 18 states. The company received outside funding in 2013 by selling a minority stake in the company to Fortitude Capital LLC. Funding was used for product distribution, marketing, and infrastructure.

It expanded to selling its products to natural and specialty retailers, including Wegmans and H-E-B, including distributing to reach six of Whole Foods Market regions. Chameleon Cold-Brew was approached by Target Corporation to sell its products. The company originally turned down the offer from Target as it did not want to risk going into mass too soon. It eventually agreed to a test distribution for 81 Target stores in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Louisiana. In 2014, Chameleon Cold-Brew was given the Best Coffee award by BevNET.

In 2015, Chameleon Cold-Brew expanded its distribution with Target to 520-plus stores throughout the United States. That same year, it raised $4 million of a $4.5 million funding round. Funding was reported to be used to expand distribution and research and development.

Products

Chameleon Cold-Brew offers ready to drink cold brew coffee. Its cold-brew coffee also comes in concentrate that can be made into cold brew coffee by adding water, milk or other liquids. Its products are made through a 16 hour brewing process that uses only fair trade, organic coffee, and limestone cured Texas Hill Country water for the brewing process. Its products are available in three main flavors; black, mocha, and vanilla. In 2015 it introduced three new ready-to-drink flavors (espresso, chicory and Mexican), which started as exclusives to Wholesale Foods Market. Other concentrate flavors that have been introduced are Caramel, Mocha and Texas Pecan. In 2016, Chameleon released its one-gallon bag-in-box black concentrate sold regionally. Chameleon Cold-Brew uses 100% recycled packaging for its products. It also ships using a carbon offset program through Green Mountain Energy.