Wandering Bear brews success
Brewing success with Wandering Bear Coffee
At whatever point you are in your packaging journey, SIG is here to help. We understand the power and potential of our bag-in-box, pouches, and cartons, even if these formats are slow to be adopted in certain sectors.
Wandering Bear Coffee began in 2013 when Matt Bachmann and Ben Gordon showed up at a grad school classroom, each carrying a mason jar of homemade cold brew coffee. Within months, they had rented a small kitchen in Queens, NY, and worked tirelessly (and over-caffeinated) to figure out how to scale their homebrew. More than ten years later, that passion remains, and Wandering Bear is on a mission to become a favorite part of your day, every day.
The challenge: preserving integrity
After figuring out how to scale their cold brew production, the next question Bachmann and Gordon faced was how to package their product. At the time (mid-2010s), most cold brew was packaged in glass. "There was no product integrity," says Gordon. "Once you opened the package, [you] introduced oxygen, and the coffee started to go stale."
Freshness was critical to the team at Wandering Bear. As they explored packaging options, they hoped the solution would answer the following question: "How do you put multiple servings of cold brew in a packaging format that will keep it fresh if it's consumed today, if it's being consumed two weeks from now?"
The solution: never-before-seen in coffee
Bag-in-box quickly became the answer to Wandering Bear's needs. "Bag-in-box is a fantastic [format]...because it keeps air and light out and enables the consumer to dispense at will and maintain the freshness of the product," says Bachmann.
Once Bachmann and Gordon landed on bag-in-box, they turned to SIG—our reputation for being a leader in bag-in-box packaging appealed to the newly formed company. Together, we designed an on-tap cold brew dispensing system, similar to many boxed wine packages but had yet to be implemented in coffee.
The result: a leader and innovator in the cold brew sector
Once they entered the market, Wandering Bear products immediately stood out on the shelf compared to their competitors, many of whom were bottling cold brew in glass. "Bag-in-box creates that brand loyalty," says Bachmann.
SIG's packaging solutions allow coffee, a low-acid product, to be brewed cold and kept ambient throughout the supply chain. Wandering Bear now has its products everywhere, from high-end retail locations like Eataly to high-value sites like Costco and Target, as well as their own ecommerce site.
Bag-in-box for coffee has been such a critical value-add to the cold brew industry—something that Wandering Bear and SIG saw early and were able to set the standard for.
There’s also the environmental and logistical value-add. Bag-in-box for coffee allows our partners to save on transportation costs: bag-in-box is 93% lighter than glass.
Our cold brew packaging options can keep your coffee products safe and fresh, preserving quality while extending secondary shelf life. Our wide range of bag-in-box, pouches, and cartons dispense easily, improve efficiency, and reduce waste for retail, quick-serve, or food service settings. Contact us to learn more!
