Mojo Acquired by Cooks
Mojo founder Steve Gianoutsos
NEW ZEALAND
Mojo Coffee Roasters, a popular Kiwi cafe brand, is being acquired by Auckland-based Cooks Global Foods. Once finalized, the sale will be worth about USD $12.6 million.
Mojo got its start in Wellington, NZ, 15 years ago.
“Mojo is a well-established, popular, profitable business with a highly-successful brand with a network of 36 cafes in Wellington and Auckland,” Cooks executive chairman Keith Jackson said in a statement. “It has the potential to boost our international growth ambitions, particularly in the US, where it has already established a strong presence in Chicago with increasing customer awareness and American’s developing taste for good coffee.”
As a retail café development company, Cooks Global Foods has an interest in Canadian coffee brand Esquires Coffee, a roasting and retail operation with 130 locations in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, China, Australasia, and the Middle East.
“We think Cooks is going to be really good for us in helping expand Mojo,” said Mojo founder Steve Gianoutsos. “Their experience in international markets and strategy to look globally is going to get our international expansion really firing; it’s something we’ve been pushing for some time. I’ve been working in the flagship Chicago store and we’re going to look to push out into the US and beyond.”
Gianoutsos is expected to lead the US expansion, Cooks said in the statement.