Peets Coffee is a specialty coffee roaster based in the bay area. Starting as one of the first small roasters to introduce the American public to high quality arabica coffee needed for expresso. Peets can now be found on the shelves of most major grocery store chains or in any one of their 200 locations across the nation.
Current Ownership of Peets Coffee
While Peets is a public company a majority of the company is held by a single entity and the top 3 shareholders control almost 80% of the company. Acorn Holdings BV controls 59%, Mondelez International Inc. at 17.6% and Mawer Investment Management Ltd with 3.1%.
Acorn Holdings is a private holding company that is majority owned by JAB holding. JAB is owned by the Reimann faimly.
It appears the Reimann faimly is the majority owner of Peets but it is difficult to be certain due to the layers of holding companies.
History of Peets Ownership
Peets was founded in 1966 by Alfred Peet who owned and operated the company for 10 years prior to selling to Sal Bonavita. Despite selling in 1976 Peet stayed with the company until the early 80’s.
Jerry Baldwin who was no stranger to the coffee business, he and a partner started a little coffee shop in Seattle, purchased the 4 Peets locations in 1984.
By 2001 Peets had their initial public offering. After being public for over 10 years Peets was taken private by JAB Holdings.
Currently Peets is a publicly traded company once again after going public for the second time in 2020 in part a deal valuing the company at 17.3 billion.