RTD coffee startups brewing innovation

KANSAS CITY — The familiar image of coffee being brewed in a home coffee maker is giving way to a new generation of ready-to-drink (RTD) products. Startups are challenging multinational coffee companies with differentiated RTD products that feature familiar ingredients and distinct flavor profiles but in an approachable format.

Companies delivering on those attributes include Beekeeper Coffee, a Los Angeles-based startup that began selling RTD cold brew lattes direct-to-consumer (DTC) in September 2023, and Yah Yah Yah, a Denver-based startup that launched Middle Eastern-inspired canned cold brew lattes through DTC and retail channels in May.

For the 52-week period ended Sept. 9, the RTD coffee and tea category accounted for $8.4 billion in sales, according to Chicago-based market researcher, Circana. Cappuccino and iced coffee made up 39% of that number at $3.3 billion, while cold brew showed the most growth at 92% over the last year, the highest among all RTD coffee and tea segments, Circana said.

“RTD coffee is one of the fastest-growing beverage segments, but most of the shelf is either legacy coffeehouse brands or functional or energy plays,” said David Creech, co-founder of Beekeeper Coffee. “The segment has very little real innovation and a lack of cultural connection and that was the opportunity.”

Formulating with familiar ingredients

Beekeeper is using honey to build flavor, texture and clean label appeal, while Yah Yah Yah is homing in on Middle Eastern coffee flavors to appeal to consumers seeking global flavors.

Honey is the signature sweetener across Beekeeper’s line, which was developed with younger consumers, including Gen Zers and millennials, in mind.

As a main sweetener, honey gives the product a distinctive flavor and fuller flavor, resulting in a richer-tasting beverage at the same sweetness level, Creech said.

“Younger coffee drinkers who grew up with cold brew as the default care about ingredients and buy brands that reflect their world,” he said.

Honey also was a common sweetener that Yah Yah Yah founder Sarah Yahya and her family used in their coffee and chai beverages before moving from Iraq to the United States.

Yahya wanted to carry that tradition into the product’s formulation, which features honey, agave inulin, cocoa powder, acacia fiber, natural flavors and pistachio, among other ingredients.

“I really wanted something that was not a sugar bomb,” Yahya said. “Beyond sweetness, honey contributes its own subtle flavor character and complements the coffee, milk, cardamom, pistachio and cocoa. It helps us create a latte that isn’t overly sweet but has just the right amount of sweetness to balance the coffee and other flavors.”

Developing differentiated flavors

Both companies are using flavor to differentiate.

Beekeeper’s flavor lineup includes black, caramel, mocha, vanilla, horchata and hot honey varieties.

“Hot honey has been having a moment across food, and we saw an opportunity to bring that sweet-heat profile into coffee where no one had done it before,” Creech said. “One of the biggest trends we see in the RTD coffee category is product innovation driven by both flavor and clean ingredients. Consumers are introduced to new, exciting flavors every day through the coffee shops they frequent and the never-ending blitz of content that hits their social feeds.”

Yah Yah Yah offers Dubai mocha, baklava latte and cardamom latte flavors

Yahya said the cardamom latte, the company’s original flavor and strongest seller, helps the company stand apart in a category dominated by vanilla, caramel and hazelnut offerings.

Baklava and Dubai mocha also have garnered interest as consumers increasingly seek pistachio-forward flavors, she said.

“At the end of the day, consumers don’t have a lot of choices out there and we wanted to bring that option to them,” Yahya said. “As I started paying more attention to the ready-to-drink coffee category, I kept seeing the same flavors and very little representation of coffee traditions that I grew up with.”

To develop the Iraqi-inspired flavors, the company worked with a certified Q Grader, a coffee taster who evaluates and scores coffee quality using standardized international methods, to evaluate how the coffee presents within the complete formulation.

“We treat coffee as the foundation of the beverage, not simply another ingredient,” Yahya said. “Everything surrounding the coffee is carefully balanced so it complements rather than masks it.”

Launching globally inspired flavors can present challenges, but Yahya said consumers have responded positively to Yah Yah Yah’s products.

“Many consumers are experiencing cardamom in coffee or a baklava-inspired latte for the first time, and one of the comments we hear frequently is, ‘I’ve never had anything like this before,’” she said. “I think the familiar format makes that discovery approachable. Someone may not know cardamom or baklava, but they know an iced latte. It gives them a comfortable entry point into flavors they may not otherwise have tried.”

Beekeeper and Yah Yah Yah are focused on expanding distribution and building awareness in a crowded category.

Beekeeper received an undisclosed investment in August backed by professional athletes and entrepreneurs to support retail expansion, product innovation and culture-forward marketing initiatives.

Beekeeper has expanded beyond DTC into hospitality and the natural grocery channels, including Erewhon, The Fresh Market, Wegmans and Thrive Market and recently debuted nationwide at Target.

“Near term, it’s about winning in the doors we’re in,” Creech said. “Then expanding distribution and the depth of the lineup from there. For innovation, our pipeline follows the same logic as Horchata and Hot Honey: flavors people are already excited about in food and culture, introduced in coffee first.”

Yah Yah Yah was accepted into Whole Foods Market’s 2026 Local and Emerging Accelerator Program (LEAP) Early Growth cohort and the California Milk Advisory Board’s Real California Milk Excelerator Program.

“There is an enormous world of Middle Eastern ingredients and flavor traditions to explore,” Yahya said. “Our future innovation will continue to be guided by the same principle that drives our current R&D: real ingredients, thoughtful sourcing, balanced sweetness and flavors that have an authentic reason for being there.”

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