Lovely Bones: After ‘Star Wars,’ Rising Coffee Brand Looks to RTDs

If you’ve never tried coffee flavored like milk that’s been soaking in a mountain of Fruity Pebbles, now is your chance.

That sentence may be enough to kill a refined coffee snob, but it’s clearly working on a lot of other people, according to Bones Coffee Co. CEO/founder Travis Rule and co-owner/creative director Tyler Nelke. The Florida-based roaster’s bagged coffee business has been thriving online thanks mainly to its design flair and its winning blend of creative flavors – besides the aforementioned fruit cereal flavor, officially called Electric Unicorn, their sweet-toothed portfolio includes items like Sinn-O-Bun (cinnamon bun) and Mint Invaders from Chocolate Space (mint chocolate chip ice cream).

But amidst a wave of new products entering the category, can that approach translate to success in RTD? With five cold brew latte SKUs – French Toast, Electric Unicorn, Sinn-O-Bun, S’morey Time, and Holy Cannoli, all made with dairy milk – now available at Walmart in 11 oz. cans ($2.98 each), the brand says early indicators are positive.

“Our goal is to make our coffee accessible for everyone when they’re doing their weekly grocery shopping,” said Rule. “It’s been a goal of ours for a while to expand into all the large retailers and grow our product lines.”

Created in 2015, Bones Coffee is first and foremost a family business; Travis Rule and Tyler Nelke are brothers and co-owners, as are Susie Nelke, Eric Rule and Emily Nelke. After growing up steeped in the serious coffee culture of the Pacific Northwest, Travis and Tyler said they didn’t find the same environment after settling in Cape Coral, Florida. Eager to try their hand in the market, they sought out cultivating a novel take.

The result is something a bit like Liquid Death; not just a shared love of skull imagery and tongue-in-cheek humor, but a brand with a clear and consistent aesthetic that looks good on both a package and a t-shirt. Bones’ approach has been to create unique art for each individual SKU that connects to the core visual theme, placing its skeleton mascot in a different context to reflect the flavor. That’s all being done by an on-staff team of artists who have been with the company since its early days, Nelke explained.

Leaning into bold, naturally and artificially flavored coffees risks alienating a segment of consumers, but Bones’ willingness to take those risks has also helped capture traction on social media. The brand has over 380,000 followers on Instagram and 97,000 followers on TikTok.

“When we started the business, ads were a lot cheaper than they are these days, so we were able to really capitalize on that and build a loyal following that is now here to support us for the long term,” said Rule.

Bones’ ascent has opened the door for licensed collaborations with major IP holders across the world of entertainment – but that in itself isn’t so rare in coffee these days. Beyond the growing galaxy of celebrity or influencer-affiliated startups, you can find bagged coffee emblazoned with the logo of your favorite NBA team, comic book hero or 1980s movie franchise, just to name a few options.

That’s an opportunity for Bones to play to its strengths: when compared to the slapped-on logos of some of its competitors, Bones’ hand-drawn designs and artistic interpretations stand out. Rather than partnering with something like the UFC (Nelke claims he backed off an approach from the MMA league), Bones’ choice of IPs are steeped in decades of pop culture history; more specifically, think Disney. After initially teaming on a limited edition release tied to Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Bones ‘relationship with the House of Mouse has yielded flavors based on “Indiana Jones” and “The Haunted Mansion,” and now with a three-flavor release celebrating the original “Star Wars” trilogy.

Getting to play in the Star Wars sandbox was a “dream” for the company, they said, but also an opportunity to draw new consumers into the brand. As decades of spending on licensed Star Wars merchandise attests, fans of the franchise are eager to indulge when tempted.

“Every time we’ve launched a [limited edition] like Star Wars, we see a pretty large spike in new customer acquisition,” said Rule. “It’s been great for opening doors, like with Walmart. I think that exposure and people seeing that we’re working with a brand like Disney gives us more credibility.”

The success of those projects have helped Bones scale operations from the founders’ kitchen to a 50,000 square-foot roasting and fulfillment facility, serviced by a team of 90 employees.

It’s unclear if the “Star Wars” flavors or other licensed flavors will make the jump into RTD, but Bones isn’t waiting around: over a year in the making, its reformulated, milk-based ready-to-drinks are a major piece of its plans to grow offline in grocery retail with the likes of Albertsons (1,400 doors) and Walmart. The latter chain has notably been eagerly recruiting next-gen coffee makers like Throne and Happy to its shelf, among others. At 28 grams of sugar and 210 calories per 11 oz. can, Bones is positioned firmly on the category’s indulgent side.

Those products all have their own differentiated takes on coffee, and Bones clearly has its own.

“I think from a product development standpoint, we love that challenge,” said Nelke. “ We love [thinking] ‘what can we do now?’ That keeps us innovating in this space. And I think that’s really important for us as a brand, not only for us to keep things fun around here, but to keep people interested because what they’ve come to know from us is ‘Look at Bones and all their wacky interesting flavors. I gotta try that.’”