ThinkFest Recap: Todd Carmichael — The Coffee Revolution Starts in Philly
Todd Carmichael at ThinkFest.
ThinkFest is streaming live all day. Watch ThinkFest here.
As usual, La Colombe Torrefaction CEO Todd Carmichael was a ball of coffee-fueled energy on Friday morning.
During his session at ThinkFest 2015, Carmichael called out large food companies for failing to innovate and choosing profits over quality. He even said he’s leading a new coffee revolution and called out Starbucks and Keurig Green Mountain (maker of K-Cups) for being “too big to lead.”
The revolution, he said, is coming in the form of canned and kegged draft lattes — something he thinks will destroy the iced coffee market due to its “luxurious” taste and texture. In typical Carmichael form, he took off his blazer just a few minutes into his talk.
Here are some highlights:
Why large food and beverage companies are “too big to lead.”
“They’ve forgotten what it’s like to be revolutionary leaders who charge out and really, truly lead with their values. If your company values transportability and shelf-life over nutrition, you’re too big to lead. If you value sensory manipulation and chemistry over natural tastes, you’re probably too big to lead.”
“We pull 1 trillion pounds of food off grocery shelves each year, but the companies that served my parents will not feed my children.”
Why Philly should have more pride in its innovative culture:
“This is the city that invented modern democracy. That is freakin’ bad ass. This city doesn’t realize how cutting edge it is.” Some awesome Philly-made innovations he mentioned are candy corn, wrapped chocolate (from Hershey), the bottle cap and the Mason jar. “We changed how we can preserve food over time.”
On Green Mountain and Starbucks (who he didn’t identify by name but instead referred to as “Green Mermaid.”)
“Maybe they’re too big to lead anymore. I look at this as a coffee guy. Maybe it’s time to spark my revolution. I am hereby declaring the revolution is on. How am I going to do that? I’m going to do it with coffee extracted from a cold press that’s not high in acidic flavor. Something that creates a textured, luxurious beverage. We call it the draft latte.”
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