Café Bustelo

Going bolder to break through the crazy-crowded coffee category.

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Celebrating Mexican traditions, a deeper origin story aligns with consumer desires for cultural discovery.

Café Bustelo® has always led with bold flavor. The brand was founded in Harlem over a century ago by Gregorio Bustelo, a Spanish native who traveled extensively through Latin American cities, inspiring the rich, espresso-style coffee he became known for. In recent years, The J.M. Smucker Co. has worked to evolve Café Bustelo, innovating new products to expand the portfolio with fresh flavors and enrich the brand story—one built on tradition and exploration.

Seeing a white-space opportunity for deeper storytelling in the coffee category, Café Bustelo came to LPK to reimagine its popular Café de México Instant Coffee, better aligning with emerging consumer desires, like Curiosity. Knowing savvy coffee drinkers crave a robust flavor profile and connection to community, LPK developed a strategy to convey a compelling origins story on pack, while also elevating Café Bustelo’s most revered assets.

We custom-built an approach that balanced Café Bustelo’s iconic brand design with a strong packaging system to drive shoppability. Bringing our deep expertise in Print & Pattern, LPK enrolled a renowned illustrator in México to join our team, developing a library of color, symbology and texture that felt modern, authentic and respectful of native Mexican traditions. The approach brought a crucial cultural lens to the work, while staying true to the design elements that make Café Bustelo so revered.

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Expertise
  • Packaging Design
  • Graphics + Illustration
Products
  • Actionable Consumer Desires
  • Brand Transformation
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Project Outcome

Café Bustelo México Instant Coffee has hit shelves in markets across the US, with the intent to showcase more Latin American communities in the future. The work represents Café Bustelo’s commitment to continue celebrating the cultures behind the brand’s bold offerings.

”It is so important to us that the pack authentically represents Mexican culture. And LPK did just that.

Café Bustelo Brand Team