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Atomo’s new coffee roastery in Seattle. (Atomo Photo)
Atomo, the Seattle-based beanless coffee maker, is marking Earth Day with the grand opening of a new roastery in its hometown that will produce the company’s grounds for coffee shops around the country.
The 33,547 square-foot facility south of downtown Seattle is capable of producing 90 million cups of coffee per year and ushers in another new era for the 5-year-old startup.
“This factory really is a breakthrough for us,” said Atomo co-founder and CEO Andy Kleitsch. “We’re going to satisfy every delivery method of coffee — espresso, drip, ready to drink, and pods.”
Atomo CEO Andy Kleitsch. (Atomo Photo)
Espresso grounds, formulated for professional espresso machines, will be the first product off the line.
“We chose that because that is probably the best customer experience that you can have surrounding coffee — going to a cafe and having a barista make you a beautiful drink,” Kleitsch said. “We really wanted our product to be featured in that way when we first launched.”
Starting in August, Atomo will be partnering with Bluestone Lane, which has 58 coffee shops and cafes around the country. Other independent shops in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Austin will serve Atomo’s espresso. In Seattle, Atomo drinks will be available at Heard Coffee on South Jackson Street.
Atomo also recently landed fresh funding from Japanese brewing and distilling company Suntory.
Atomo first arrived on Seattle’s crowded coffee scene in 2019 as a food-tech startup with a promise to reverse engineer the coffee bean. Its formula has involved removing the bean from the process of making coffee and substituting it with a molecular concoction derived from naturally sustainable, upcycled plant waste ingredients, including extracts of date pits, lemon, guava and sunflower.
Atomo’s espresso blend is designed to have dark chocolate, dried fruit and graham cracker tasting notes. (Atomo Photo)
The company’s goal is to mitigate the effects of climate change on coffee-growing regions around the globe and provide a substitute for the environmentally destructive process of coffee farming. Atomo says its regular espresso generates 83% less carbon emissions and uses 70% less farmland compared to conventional coffee.
Atomo went through a strategic realignment and restructuring last year which resulted in an unspecified number of layoffs. At the time, Atomo was canning different flavors of its “molecular cold brew,” but Kleitsch said a “breakthrough in grounds” created a desire to change focus and ramp production of those grounds in a bigger roastery.
“We started the business to make the world a better place. To do that you have to do it at scale,” Kleitsch said, adding that partnering with established coffee shops and chains is the quickest way to reach more people.
Atomo now employs close to 40 people across a laboratory team, production/operations, and sales/marketing. The startup has raised just over $53 million from backers including S2G Ventures, AgFunder and Horizons Ventures.
