Intelligentsia Has Been Bought By Peets Coffee & Tea

By Anthony Todd in Food on Oct 30, 2015 4:29PM

We warned that this deal might be coming earlier in the month, when it came out that Chicago-based Intelligentsia (which also has locations in New York and California) was looking for a buyer.

Well, it's now official: Peets Coffee & Tea has purchased the company.

The Tribune reports that the deal, which has Peets buying a majority stake in Intelligentsia, was announced this morning. While it was previously reported that the sale price could be as high as $100 million, the terms of the deal were not publicly disclosed.

Eater got ahold of the Director of Marketing for Peets, who said that this was part of their efforts to build a portfolio of super premium coffee brands. This purchase is on the heels of Peets' recent purchase of Portland-based Stumptown coffee.

Intelligentsia lovers are sure to wonder—what does this mean for their daily coffee fix? According to Peets, nothing.

"We don't anticipate it changing, we're going to continue to operate as it is, as independent businesses." This goes for the whole operation: Though Peet's and Intelligentsia buy coffee beans from different coffee collectives and farmers, Peet's promises this won't change. The channels in which the roasters acquire their coffee will stay the same.