Boca Java, an Online Gourmet Coffee Marketer, has acquired several key assets of Web coffee merchant Café Belmondo from The Thompson Group. Terms were not disclosed.
The deal includes trademarks and domains, marketing data on customers, e-mail addresses of customers and prospects, non-coffee inventory, and rights to use marketing collateral, including Web content, direct mail designs and images.
Thompson Group includes the Thompson & Co. premium cigar business, apparel catalog Casual Living, and home goods title Linen Source. The company launched Café Belmondo in 2005.
What prompted Boca Java, a six-year-old company specializing in artisan-roasted coffee, to acquire the firm?
“The Thompson Group had a business in Café Belmondo that had a very similar Coffee Club — in terms of demographics and basic club offering — to the Boca Java Connoisseur Club,” says Michael Dell’Arciprete, vice president of marketing for Boca Java.com, which is owned by multichannel merchant Blyth. “Thompson had begun to focus on its other larger business units, namely Thompson Cigar and Casual Living, and ultimately decided to get out of the coffee business.”
The acquisition gives Boca Java insight into Café Belmondo’s past marketing efforts, he says, “with the aim to improve the cost effectiveness of our current marketing programs.”
What can customers expect from the new combination? A wider selection of coffee blends, including Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, flavored coffees, and many new blends. And fresher coffee.
“All Boca Java coffee is roasted-to-order and received by our customers within days of being roasted for peak freshness and taste,” Dell’Arciprete explains. “Café Belmondo had previously batch-processed much of its coffee,” he adds.