La Colombe is moving its fastest-growing café product into the ready-to-drink aisle, launching three canned Matcha Lattes that the brand says are built on the same quality standards that reshaped RTD coffee more than a decade ago. Matcha sales inside La Colombe cafés have climbed 188% since 2023, a signal the brand treated as a greenlight to bring the category to retail scale.
The lineup ships in 11 oz cans across three SKUs — Everyday Matcha Latte, Strawberry, and Vanilla — each delivering 65mg of natural caffeine and positioned as a good protein source. The formulations combine single-origin matcha from Japan with farm-fresh, lactose-free whole milk sourced from Michigan, a pairing the brand says allows matcha's naturally bright, umami-rich character to come through without masking it.
Café Credibility Meets RTD
For foodservice operators and retail buyers assessing the RTD matcha shelf, La Colombe's café heritage carries weight. The brand built its reputation on premium coffee roasting since 1994 before disrupting the RTD coffee segment with its Draft Latte® — widely credited with elevating consumer expectations for canned lattes. Chobani acquired La Colombe in 2023, and the combined company is now applying that innovation framework to matcha, a category that has moved well beyond niche wellness positioning into mainstream beverage industry growth.
"When La Colombe first put the Draft Latte® in a can, the brand helped reshape the RTD coffee category by making a true coffeehouse quality experience accessible to more people. Now, we're bringing that same craft and innovation to matcha," said Niel Sandfort, Chief Innovation Officer at Chobani and La Colombe. "We challenged ourselves to create a product with the highest quality ingredients that raises the bar for what consumers should expect from RTD matcha."
Operator and Retail Implications
The launch is relevant to restaurant and hospitality purchasing teams as much as grocery buyers. RTD lattes have become a staple in hotel grab-and-go, fast-casual coolers, and convenience channels, and matcha's rapid migration from specialty café menus to mainstream demand makes a credentialed RTD entry meaningful for operators looking to stock formats that reflect current menu trends without additional labor or equipment investment. A product tied to measurable café sell-through data — 188% growth over three years — also provides category managers with a clearer demand signal than many new RTD entrants carry at launch.
La Colombe Matcha Lattes are available online and rolling out to major retailers nationwide in September 2026. The brand sits within Food & Beverage Magazine partner Chobani's broader portfolio strategy of extending premium nutrition positioning across dayparts and formats.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
