‘You can't own Seattle’: Local coffee maker fights Nestlé

SEATTLE - A local cold brew coffee company is fighting a legal battle for its existence against Swiss food giant Nestlé.

The dispute is over "Seattle Strong."

Evan Oeflein, founder of Seattle Strong, says Nestlé expanded its legal challenge this year to target the company's logo and overall visual branding after initially disputing only the business's name in 2025.

FOX 13 reached out to Nestlé over the dispute, but the company has yet to respond with their side of the story.

Why is Nestlé going after a Seattle coffee company?

Nestlé acquired the brand Seattle's Best from Starbucks in 2022.

Oeflein says he founded Seattle Strong in 2017 and Starbucks had no objections with his company, but that changed once Nestlé acquired Seattle’s Best.

Trademark disputes often come down to the likelihood of consumer confusion.

"Strong doesn't mean best, and best doesn't mean strong. If I were to hand you a really strong cup of coffee, you're not automatically going to assume that's the best cup of coffee. And so the meaning isn't the same, except for the word Seattle. And you can't own Seattle," Oeflein said.

Seattle Strong filed its word trademark in 2023 and was officially granted it by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2024.

Oeflein says he will not back down and change the name of his company, but as long as the legal dispute drags on, so do the legal fees.

"As a small business, it definitely adds a lot of burden to us to not only be fighting just to keep existing, but then to be fighting additional legal costs on top of that," Oeflein said.

Seattle Strong was born from an entrepreneurship program at the University of Washington. Since then, the brand has grown into a full-time business, expanding its ready-to-drink canned cold brews into roughly 300 retail stores across Washington, California, and Texas.

"In the time it takes us to sell one can of cold brew coffee, they've sold, you know, the equivalent of a hundred thousand units," Oeflein said.

The local coffee company is characterizing the conflict as a classic David and Goliath story.

"David won in the end, so I think we will, too," Oeflein said.

For more information on Seattle Strong and the dispute, visit the Seattle Strong website.

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