Cafe Bustelo sale a milestone for Miami Cubans

The sale of the Café Bustelo brand marks a milestone for South Floridians who grew up in homes in which morning meant Cuban coffee.

Café Bustelo, a quintessential Miami brand, a thick, smoky blend of espresso that began as a transplanted brew with roots in 1800s Cuba, has been sold to a quintessential Midwestern food giant, but the business deal marks more than a change of ownership: Nothing was as synonymous with the capital of Cuban exiles as that cafecito brewed by the success of one of South Florida’s own.

For $360 million, the three sons of the late Jose Angel “Pepe” Souto sold to Ohio’s J.M. Smucker the Miami company their father started in 1961 selling coffee door-to-door to homesick exiles like himself.

Back then, the hope of a return to the homeland clashed with the daily reality of having to support a family, of starting anew in a foreign land. Hardworking entrepreneurs like Souto turned dislocation into prosperity.

When Souto died in 2007, his Doral-based Rowland Coffee Roasters owned not only Café Bustelo and Café Pilon, the top Cuban-style brands, but also Medaglia D’Oro, Estrella, Caffe Signore, Ideal, Moka d’Oro, El Pico, Oquendo and Souto, the family brand that dates to 1865 in Cuba’s central Sancti Spiritus.

The Souto family success gave the children of exiles uninterrupted traditions, a cup of culture in every colada. But Cubans weren’t the only ones seduced by the aroma of the thick blend. The coffee culture caught on all over South Florida, and many non-Cubans became hooked on their cafecito.

Tradition and crossover turned Bustelo into the No. 1 Cuban coffee brand in the United States.

“Those yellow-and-red bricks and cans are as iconic a representation of Miami as the Rickenbacker Causeway,” says Aaron Curtis, 38, a buyer for Books & Books who moved to Miami from New York in 1997 and took up drinking Cuban coffee, at first Pilon, then Bustelo.

Bustelo and sister brand Pilon, a more finely ground and expensive bean, also sold Tuesday to Smucker, were promoted for decades with catchy jingles.

Who can forget the voice of salsa queen Celia Cruz belting out the jingle, “Pilon, s abroso hasta el último buchito” — tasty to the last drop? To this, Bustelo and its legions of fans countered: “ Digan lo que digan en mi casa toman Bustelo.” Say what you may, in my home we drink Bustelo.

And so it was, through catchy advertising and sheer customer satisfaction, that cafecito and the counters that served it — prepared straight up, with a dash of milk as a cortadito or in a sturdy full cup of café con leche — became synonymous with life in Miami.

The coladas and the plastic demitasse cups got passed around the office, the factory, the airport.

“Bustelo ... brings back memories of post adolescence, stopping at Versailles before going out on the town, to get fueled for the night,” says artist Adalberto Delgado. “We drove miles sometimes in search of the Bustelo taste, because none of my friends or ex-wives liked the taste of Pilón. In my musician days, a stop at La Palma or Versailles after a gig was a must. They both brewed Bustelo.”

Even today, when sitting at a Starbucks or any of the new fancy coffee places, one thing comes to mind ... ¿estarán colando Bustelo?’’ Are they brewing Bustelo here?”

Like many in South Florida who learned about the sale, Curtis fears Smucker, owners of the Folgers and Kava coffee brands, will “tinker” with the flavor of Cuban coffee.

“People will be sitting around a boardroom, brainstorming on how to ‘brand’ Pilon and Bustelo for a national and international clientele,” Curtis says. “Even if they don’t change the bean, in trying to maximize their market, they’ll muck it up and destroy the package’s simple charm. It’s like asking James Patterson to re-write Guillermo Cabrera Infante.” 

 

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