In 1996 Elana Rosenfeld and Leo Johnson began roasting coffee beans in their garage in the Rocky Mountain town of Invermere, Canada. They sold coffee straight from their garage. They did all of this while also building their family.
In 1998 Kicking Horse coffee signed with Transfair, a Fair Trade company in Canada to build awareness for fair trade coffee businesses. In 2003 the company made a decision to stop making conventional coffee and start purchasing & packaging coffee beans that are 100% organic.
The year 2007 was particularly difficult for the company as the pressure to produce more coffee increased. But the company stood its ground and discontinued the purchase of non-fair trade coffee. They would only source organic coffee beans through Fair Trade.
This all paid off as in 2009 Kicking Horse celebrated 13 years as Canada’s number one Fair Trade organic coffee brand. They even though of more innovative ways so that everyone could enjoy their coffee.
In addition to their whole bean coffee, Kicking Horse started manufacturing ground coffee. This was developed for people on the go as grinding coffee beans takes time. Now those who didn’t have coffee grinders could also enjoy the taste of Kicking Horse Coffee with the brand’s ground range.
After 20 years of production, the company decided to produce something even cooler; a cold coffee brew for when it’s too hot to drink warm coffee. The cold brew is a deep and dark cold black coffee with no acidity. The beans are steeped for a full 20 hours to bring out the flavor.
In 2018 Kicking Horse was named Canada’s number one for Best Work Place for women, inclusion and manufacturing. Now Kicking Horse Coffee is part of the Lavazza brand & together they’ll continue making the best coffee brands on the market.