Centurium Capital, a China-based investment firm, will take over Blue Bottle Coffee from Nestle in a deal expected to close in the first half of 2026. The transaction covers the cafés and CPG operations. Nespresso-compatible pod rights stay with Nestle (per BeverageDaily).
The price was undisclosed but reported below the $425 million Nestle paid less than a decade ago. The discount tells the story: brand-led café expansion has not delivered the returns big food expected.
Nestle's strategic logic is now public. The company is concentrating on what its leadership calls "scalable, high-margin coffee formats: pods, instant, and ready-to-drink". Blue Bottle's café-heavy model conflicts with that direction. Café operations are "capital-intensive, labour-heavy and exposed to volatile urban real estate". Retaining the Nespresso-compatible pod rights means Nestle continues to benefit from Blue Bottle's brand equity in its highest-margin format without bearing the operational cost.
The broader read: branded café expansion is being unwound across big food. Coca-Cola has had similar struggles with Costa Coffee. The pattern suggests CPGs are increasingly concluding that café operations are too capital-intensive and operationally distinct from the core packaged-goods playbook to justify on multiple grounds.
For commercial teams in coffee, the next round of category investment goes to pods, instant, and RTD. Café formats keep losing strategic share within big-food coffee portfolios.