The humble cup of coffee meets science and innovation at RISE Brewing Co. Consumers faced with a range of beverage options look for beverages that new ways to rise to the top. RISE Brewing Co. began with their signature nitro cold brew and initially didn't imagine moving beyond nitro brews. In 2018, they entered the oat milk space with Oat Milk Latte beverages and on March 4th, they launched their first non-nitro brew product: Organic Oat Milk.
“When developing our Oat Milk Lattes, 100-percent organic oat milk didn’t exist, and we refused to use a lesser-than product. To solve this issue, we did exactly what we did when we first launched four years ago and developed a new beverage from scratch with zero willingness to compromise on ingredients or taste,” said RISE Brewing Co. Co-Founder and CEO Grant Gyesky.
Founded in 2014, RISE Brewing Co. was an early innovator in the nitro brew space. In 2018, RISE began the journey to create the world's first USDA organic nitro cold brew Oat Milk Latte. Coming from the vantage point of a non-dairy, non-plant-based company, they were able to focus on the details of this new beverage that added oat milk to their signature RISE nitro brew beverage.
The Oat Milk Latte wasn't their first innovation. RISE Brewing Co. had already formulated several varieties and flavors of their original nitro brew: the non-GMO, non-dairy, zero-calorie Original Black organic and a line of two citrus flavors described that "taste like tea, caffeinate like coffee". Over a year of development, RISE Brewing Co. ended 2018 with not one, but three nitrogen cold brew lattes. The development journey was affirmed by the beverage industry with the oat milk lattes earning a prestigious BevNet Award for Best New Product in 2018.
With these accolades and never a company to stop innovating, RISE Brewing Co. decided to make their first step away from nitro brewed beverages. After expanding their beverage line-up, RISE Brewing Co. discovered there was no organic oat milk on the market in the process of developing their oat milk lattes. RISE Brewing Co. found that 70% of their RISE Brewing Co. cafe consumers were drinking dairy-free coffee drinks.
“Since last year, we’ve seen consumer demand for oat milk explode, especially from loyal customers of RISE Brewing Co.,” Gyesky said. “Our organic Oat Milk Latte line received such a tremendous response that many people were asking where they could purchase the oat milk separately. Our Organic Oat Milk not only tastes great but blends into coffee better than any non-dairy milk out there because of its ultra-creamy texture and natural sweetness.”
Staying within their mission of providing high quality and great tasting products, RISE Brewing Co. had already developed their oat milk to be organic, free of gums, emulsifiers and added sugar, and containing no added sugar. However, it was only included as part of the Oat Milk Latte.
RISE Brewing Co. made the next development step to launch their organic oat milk as a stand-alone product at the 2019 Natural Products Expo West. Already available for order at the RISE Brewing Co. website, the Original Black, Classic Latte and Mocha Latte flavors will roll out to over 2,000 Walmart stores in April. Release of the Oat Milk on the site and in stores will follow later in the spring after RISE Brewing Co. arranges distribution.
“We always considered this as separate product, but our focus wanted to remain on coffee product initially,” said Gyesky. “As we saw some of the new players coming to market with oat milk, we saw a similar opening for a better-for-you organic alternative. It just kept being put in front of our face that this is something we should do.”
Competing with other oat milk brands like Quaker, Hood and Oatly meant that RISE Brewing Co. would have to differentiate their product in the exploding, competitive plant-based space. RISE Brewing Co. co-founder Jarrett McGovern took the company's mission of simplicity and quality to the oat milk by creating it with only four ingredients: French organic sunflower seeds, Finnish organic oats, water and a sprinkle of sea salt.
Not only does the simple ingredient list appeal to label-savvy, health conscious consumers, it also helps RISE Brewing Co. avoid oat supply sourcing issues that have plagued oat milk companies and the overall oat milk market. According to Market Watch, oat milk sales grew 425 percent from 2017 to 2018 with no sign of slowing down which made easier, consistent sourcing of ingredients crucial for RISE Brewing Co.
“One of the results of us doing all the sourcing and building oat milk from scratch and not buying from supplier or another brand is that we’ve tapped into farms and sources that aren’t necessarily yet being taxed by the current oat milk market,” McGovern said.
RISE Brewing Co. isn't one to stop rising up the beverage ladder or serving consumers. Recent sponsorship's with the USA Surfing and USA Climbing teams provide zero-calorie, organic Original Black nitro cold brew coffee to fuel athletes and further cement RISE Brewing Co.'s place as a natural beverage option.
In the past 12 months, RISE Brewing Co. opened their flagship Manhattan cafe, launched the Nitro Cold Brew Oat Milk Lattes and won three prestigious beverage awards. While RISE Brewing Co. keeps innovating, McGovern says that the company will remain dedicated to coffee at its core while still creating new products for consumers.
“We want something innovative, better than anything else on shelf that uses the best ingredients and is organic. Applying those filters towards development has allowed us to be successful with products we maybe wouldn’t think we could do in the past,” McGovern said. “We are coffee focused, but we like to be innovative and develop solutions in beverage that are better tasting and better for you.”
The RISE Brewing Co. site waxes poetic about enjoying a simple cup of joe as the impetus for developing the cold brew process. It then moves on to speak to the science of nitrogen infusion complementing the cold brew process to create a "beautiful cascade, creamy head and refreshingly smooth finish". That inherent love of coffee mixed with innovation is present in every step of RISE Brewing Co.'s innovation journey.
As invention and trends lead the way, RISE Brewing Co. continues to create new options with their mission at heart: making high quality, great-tasting beverages with the freshest organic ingredients they can source. From nitro brew to oat milk latte to organic oat milk, RISE Brewing Co. is fast rising to the top of the beverage space.
