Nestlé Escalates Legal Battle Over Seattle Strong Brand
August 14 - 2026
Coffee Geography Magazine
A local cold brew company is fighting what it calls a modern-day David and Goliath battle against Swiss food giant Nestlé, as the multinational corporation escalates its legal challenge over the "Seattle Strong" brand.
In March 2026, Nestlé filed a second case challenging Seattle Strong's logo, broadening the dispute beyond the company's name to target its entire visual branding—nearly a year after initially contesting the business name in 2025.
The conflict traces back to 2022, when Nestlé acquired the brand Seattle's Best from Starbucks. Evan Oeflein, who founded Seattle Strong in 2017, says his company had operated without objection from Starbucks for years—but that changed once Nestlé took over.
Now, the local coffee company finds itself in a protracted legal struggle that has already stretched through more than a year of settlement negotiations, extended proceedings, and mounting legal costs—with no resolution in sight.
At the heart of the disagreement is a fundamental question: Can a multinational corporation effectively own the name of a city?
"Strong doesn't mean best, and best doesn't mean strong," Oeflein said. "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."
Seattle Strong filed for its word trademark in 2023 and was officially granted registration by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2024. Despite this legal recognition, Nestlé's expanded challenge now threatens not just the company's name but its entire brand identity.
Seattle Strong was born from an entrepreneurship program at the University of Washington. Since then, the brand has grown into a full-time operation, expanding its ready-to-drink canned cold brews into approximately 300 retail stores across Washington, California, and Texas.
Despite the ongoing legal dispute, the company has continued to grow. Over the past year, Seattle Strong has expanded throughout the West Coast with new retail and distribution partners; strengthened its operations for future growth; launched a new five-liter bag-in-box cold brew product for offices, foodservice, and home use; and showcased its products at industry trade shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Portland.
"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.
The financial disparity is stark. "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 added.
Oeflein says he will not back down or change his company's name, but as long as the legal dispute drags on, so do the legal fees.
"This isn't just about Seattle Strong," Oeflein said. "It's about whether or not local companies can represent the communities they serve and whether a Switzerland-based multi-billion-dollar conglomerate can effectively own and control the name of Seattle. If Nestlé ultimately prevails, we could be forced to abandon the brand we've spent nearly a decade building in our hometown. We also believe this could lay the foundation for it to happen in other cities across the United States and hurt the local businesses that call those cities home."
As the legal battle continues, Seattle Strong is once again turning to the community that has supported its business from the beginning, determined to protect the name that defines its brand, its city, and its story.