Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Cravero. Him and his team share the Box Cold Brew story with us below.
Please kick things off for us – how does this story start?
THE FIRST “COLD BREW” COMPANY. Born in Miami and on a mission to flip “cold brew” on its head.
“Sparkling” and “cold brew” are two growing beverage trends named by BevNET as trends to watch as millennial consumers demand more innovation, quality ingredients and functional benefits. To harness these growing trends, Box Cold Brew set out to become the first “all cold brew” beverage company, believing in the power of cold brewing to deliver better flavor, more nutrients, and lower acidity. The Miami-based start-up is ending the second half of 2018 with three new large retailer partners and 100+ independent stores, and two new bottled sparkling cold brew teas.
Founded in 2016 by Lucas Cravero, an entrepreneur jumping from craft beer to coffee and tea, Box Cold Brew began its journey in a retrofitted shipping container coffee bar concept (hence the name “Box”). Within a short period of time, the company’s cold brew teas began outselling coffee and sparked a new obsession and opportunity for growth. The team at Box made the most of their literal “box laboratory” to learn from customers, hone brewing skills, and dial-in recipes for an eventual transition from shipping container sales to bottled cold brew beverages sold at retail.
By early 2018 Box, Cold Brew had perfected its first two bottled teas – Green Goddess, a Jasmine Green Tea with basil and lime, and Pink Bits, a Hibiscus Mint Tea with mint and lime. Using hand pressed, fresh ingredients, sans preservatives or artificial flavors, each bottle contains steeped herbs (like mint and basil), is lightly sweetened with organic cane sugar and energized with natural caffeine from green coffee extract. Simple and delicious, like the hand-crafted beer from Cravero’s past career that inspired them. “Like craft beer, tea and coffee drink ingredient labels should never be complicated but should always be as delicious as possible, why not?” says founder Lucas Cravero.
The company is excited for the future given their unique positioning as a craft tea that’s both delicious and energizing, meaning they can convert drinkers seeking both flavor and a kick. In just the first four months Box Cold Brew teas have been picked up by three South Florida grocery chains (Winn-Dixie, Milam’s Market and Lucky’s Fresh Market) along with over 100 independent retailers. The untraditional, Wynwood inspired, labels help the bottles stand out on the shelf. Bucking the trend of information overload, they are clean, simple, and design focused, letting the health conscious drinker rely on the nutritional panel rather than fancy buzzwords.
Riding the momentum and buzz, Box Cold Brew will be expanding to Portland, Oregon this month along with aggressive plans to fill out their distribution footprint in Florida and popping up in Southern California before years end. For now, Miami locals can pick up a bottle at their local grocery store and stop by the sampling booth at the upcoming Vegan Block Party in Coconut Grove and Seed Food & Wine Festival in Wynwood. You’ll be sure to see Lucas and the Box team slinging teas and breaking a sweat, per usual. Everyone else in the lower 48 can shop online at www.boxcoldbrew.com.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Not at all.
The pop-up shop:
I could go on for days about the difficulty of navigating Miami’s permitting and approval process, but I’ll just say that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. We were lucky to open only eight months behind schedule but even though we’ll never recover the sunk costs, what we learned from handcrafting cold brew drinks for thousands of locals and tourists was invaluable and hopefully shows in our bottled teas. Although it only lasted a year, the pop-up shop gave us a decade worth of headaches.
Some of the highlights:
– DUMP TRUCK: While bringing in a dump truck worth of sand to lay the foundation for the astroturf front lawn we accidentally hit the container and bumped it off its foundation. My sister, her boyfriend, and I spent 8 hours with cables, pullies, and hydraulic jacks slowly wiggling the container back onto its cement footpads. At one point having to make sharp jerks with my Toyota 4runner tied to a cable which tore off the rear bumper. But we got it back on!
– RAINY SEASON: during a typical August 3 day deluge of monsoon rain the container actually began to sink on one end, causing the doors to jam. My manager and I were up until 4 am with a hydraulic jack evening out the container enough to get the doors open and be able to serve morning customers.
– BEES: with better weather in November came a yellow jacket invasion one week that forced us to close on Saturday due to thousands of bees swarming the container in search of any drop of sugar. The staff spent hours sanitizing every inch of the astroturf to remove any traces of sweetness that came with spilled drinks.
– KITTENS: a stray cat gave birth to 5 adorable black kittens under our container. Cute at first, until they began catching lizards and rats which would decay under the container. The final straw was when they started attacking curious customers looking to get a handful of kitten. (We eventually got them all adopted by loving customers).
A-TEAM:
One can never underestimate the power of having good people on your team. It was a bumpy road at first (we had to let our first manager go opening month), and we learned difficult lessons about balancing the need to move quickly with the reality that nothing is more important to long-term success than finding the RIGHT people. Happy to say that today we have a small but kick-ass team that bleeds and sweats Box Cold Brew 24/7.
Box Cold Brew – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Box Cold Brew is the world’s first “all cold brew” beverage company. Once we discovered the power and benefits of using time vs. heat, we realized we could build a brand and portfolio of products around this unique process. Cold Brewing, in essence, is very simple but requires much more time and attention which usually turns off the big companies who are driven to cut both in pursuit of more profits.
You can cold brew almost anything that releases flavor and nutrients when allowed to sit in water. Using cold water drastically increases the time needed (12-30 hours) but allows you to extract different, smoother, and more nuanced flavors from the same ingredients without the acidity released with heat. It also keeps more nutrients intact that otherwise may break down at high heat.
In addition to having the most delicious sparklingly teas on the market, we believe our expertise in cold brewing and dedication to sourcing high quality and sustainable ingredients gives us a competitive advantage in today’s mass-produced world. Most beverages on the shelf are designed to please as many people as possible. Our goal every day is to make the most DELICIOUS cold brewed drink possible, according to our tastes. It may only please 10% of consumers, and we are ok with that because we know that over time consumers are learning to appreciate less sweet, more subtly flavored drinks.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
1. Expanding our distribution to key markets (CA, TX, and NY).
We know our people are younger, open-minded consumers willing to pay for quality, taste and functional benefits. That’s why we need to get our products to places like SF, LA, Austin, and NYC as quickly as possible.
2. Becoming known as the most innovative function beverage company in the market. We are hungry to push the boundaries of what’s possible with cold brewing. Think cold brewed hemp, matcha and rare herbs and teas from around the world!
Pricing:
- $2.99 per bottle in store
- $34 per 12 pack
Contact Info:
- Website: www.boxcoldbrew.com
- Phone: 786-490-7897
- Email: yo@boxcoldbrew.com
- Instagram: boxcoldbrew
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/boxcoldbrew/
Getting in touch: VoyageMIA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
