Vrai bon café! In case you were wondering, that’s French for Real Good Coffee and timely because Compass Coffee just launched their long awaited French Roast tins into retail.
Compass Coffee’s French Roast is the darkest roast they’ve launched to date and is defined by its rich, smokey and intense flavor. The French Roast blend marks the 12th roast that Compass is bringing to market in its signature tins. 
So, why French roast? The Compass Coffee team has had customers asking for French roast in their cafés for years. As one of the most successful CPG coffee brands in the area, Compass Coffee understands the importance of making things people want.
The process for developing the French Roast, however, was different than any of the other roasts they offer in stores. For every other roast they’ve made, Compass has done a custom formulation to match what they know their customers want. This is how they developed some of their bestsellers like the Cardinal and Waypoint blends.
For the French roast, the process happened in reverse. French roast is a well known style of dark roasting coffee. Compass decided to approach the development of their take on French Roast by taking a product they already know exists and that people are asking for and making it better. The team looked at what has historically been done for French roasts and decided they wanted to do better. They didn’t just want this French roast to be good, it needed to be Real Good.
Anna Rabideau, Account Manager at Compass Coffee reflects on the multi-year development of this product. She shares, “typically, for a French roast, roasters will use their lower quality beans and roast them really dark to mask the flavor. We were focused on maintaining the integrity of the beans and developing a blend that has a really good body, or the weight of the beverage on your tongue when you’re drinking it.”
And with that, Compass developed a Real, Good version of French roast. The expansion of Compass Coffee’s retail line is a reflection of the company’s continued dedication to meeting their customers where they are. During the pandemic, the Compass team understood that many of their customers buy their coffee in retail stores in addition to their cafés. It was this realization that drove them to develop their extensive line of both whole bean, ground and single serve coffees.
Since their retail launch, Compass Coffee has been flying off the shelves. As members of our food business accelerator, the Compass team has leveraged our partnership with local retailers like Giant Foods to further their growth. After a successful onboarding on Giant Delivers, Giant’s online grocery platform, Compass Coffee is in the midst of onboarding into Giant stores, giving them the opportunity to sell their products in 100+ new stores around the Mid-Atlantic.
So what else is next for one of the area’s most beloved coffee companies? A lot says the Compass team. They are excited to roll out their French Roast tins, open some new cafés in the area and get back into growing their company by serving people Real, Good coffee.
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