Kicking Horse Coffee is now part of an Italian family

Bedminster, NJ – Luigi Lavazza S.p.A, an Italian coffee company that’s been around since 1895, has acquired BC-based Kicking Horse Coffee Ltd. for $215 million.

Swander Pace Capital, a private equity firm that specializes in consumer products companies, made the announcement.

Swander Pace Capital says in a statement that it “partnered with [Kicking Horse] co-founder Elana Rosenfeld in 2012 and made an investment through its Branch Brook Holdings partnership with Jefferson Capital Partners and United Natural Foods Inc.”

Rosenfeld also says in the statement that Swander Pace and Branch Brook “were the perfect partners” when Kicking Horse wanted to grow its business and expand beyond Western Canada.

Kicking Horse is based in Invermere, BC, and was founded by Rosenfeld and her husband Leo Johnson in 1996. According to the company’s website, Kicking Horse’s coffee is organic, fairtrade and roasted “right in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.” The company employs more than 100 people and sells its coffee across Canada and into the US.

An article on Business Vancouver (“Invermere’s Kicking Horse Coffee bought by Italy’s Lavazza,”  by Emma Crawford Hampel, May 25, 2017) reports that Lavazza has acquired an 80 per cent equity stake in the company and that “Lavazza CEO Antonio Baravalle will serve as the chair of Kicking Horse.”

The article goes onto report that Kicking Horse is “perfectly complimentary to the Lavazza portfolio” and the acquisition “represents the next step in Lavazza’s international strategy.” Lavazza has recently acquired top-selling coffee companies in France (Carte Noir) and Denmark (Merrild), says the article.

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