Reitan Convenience Lithuania leverages Caffeine chain to launch functional coffee menu in the Baltics
Reitan Convenience, a leading retailer in the Nordics and Baltics, is launching a functional coffee menu across its Caffeine coffee shop chain at the end of February.
Targeting the global trends around health, functionality and conscious consumption, the new menu is designed to position coffee as a product that delivers specific, clearly communicated benefits; as well as an habitual and pleasurable drink.
The new menu will launch across the Baltics in 100 Caffeine stores in Lithuania, 29 stores in Latvia and 12 in Estonia.
It features five key products, which have been built around the consumer needs that are increasingly visible across the category.
Longevity is having a very practical glow-up
Longevity is moving out of the “one day I’ll optimise my whole life” category and into the place where habits actually get built: what we order every day. A coffee break. A matcha moment. A quick stop between meetings. A small ritual that feels good — and quietly supports your system.
Functional powders are now part of Caffeine’s drink menu, bringing Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, collagen and açaí into drinks people already love. And yes, it’s as tasty as it sounds.
Each one is built for a different “today I need…” mood — focus, energy, glow and berry-powered resilience.
They are:
- Lion’s Mane – focus and mental clarity
- Matcha with collagen – beauty and skin support
- Açaí – balance and everyday wellbeing
- Cordyceps – natural energy
- Protein – for active, on-the-go lifestyles
Coffee is already a longevity drink (when it’s kept smart)
Coffee is more than caffeine. It’s naturally rich in bioactive compounds (including polyphenols), and moderate intake is consistently associated with health benefits in large population studies.
The key is moderation. For most adults, the “sweet spot” is often around up to three cups a day (depending on the strength of your brew and personal sensitivity). This keeps coffee supportive rather than a cause of caffeine jitters, and still very much part of a longevity-friendly lifestyle.
The launch introduces a new logo dedicated to this category, Coffee Plus. It has distinctive green branding to convey the health and wellness benefits of the offer but also features Caffeine’s signature lightning bolt. Messaging, both online and in-store, will promote Coffee Plus as “The classical coffee. New needs”. It will be supported by Renaissance-style imagery to underscore the sentiment behind the new offer i.e. there is a Renaissance in the way you can consume products today.
Established coffee on the go brand spearheads new launch
Reitan Convenience Lithuania is leveraging the Caffeine chain it acquired in 2019 for the Coffee Plus launch. It has expanded from 36 to 100 stores in Lithuania and is the leading coffee shop brand with sites spanning high traffic areas such as airports, city centres, business zones and flagship locations; as well as popular shopping malls with up to two cafés per mall. The Caffeine brand also has a presence at four EV charging hubs on the main Lithuanian highways (in partnership with company Eldrive). Half of the 48-strong Narvesen chain also offers a shop-in-shop Caffeine concept and the format has helped double sales, according to Lina Kaminskaitė, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Reitan Convenience Lithuania.
This year, Caffeine reaches a symbolic milestone, celebrating 19 years of the brand’s journey into adulthood. Founded in 2007—at a time when Lithuania had been a member of the European Union for just three years—Caffeine (then known as Coffee Inn) helped shape a new “coffee on the go” culture, making takeaway coffee both accessible and fashionable.
From the very beginning, the brand represented more than just a cup of coffee. It stood for a youthful, active and modern lifestyle. As Caffeine expanded across Lithuania to nearly 100 cafés, it evolved into a mainstream brand while remaining true to its core values: a strong focus on coffee quality and a genuine love for coffee. As the retailer likes to say, the ambition has always been to offer good, high-quality coffee to many—not just a few.
Caffeine taps latest trends with trusted industry partners
Now the brand is harnessing its coffee know-how and expertise and tapping the latest product trends such as the growth of matcha. Last year Caffeine accounted for 12% of total matcha sales, Kaminskaitė reports. The brand has also teamed up with Lithuanian wellness start-up and matcha champion, Daily Spoon, to grow the category further by linking with a credible partner.
The success of matcha revealed the size and diversity of Caffeine’s non-coffee drinker audience. This segment includes new mums who choose to avoid caffeine, as well as men and women who are curious to explore alternatives and new experiences beyond traditional coffee. One of the retailer’s experimental directions within the non-coffee category is driven by in-house R&D, such as the development of acorn coffee—a distinctly local, Lithuanian product with a strong sense of nostalgia.
And, in November 2025 Caffeine partnered with a unicorn company to launch a ‘cybersecurity coffee’. Supported by a strong promotional campaign, the initiative aimed to draw a connection between the need to remain vigilant online and how coffee can help you to stay alert and avoid hacks. The cybersecurity coffee blended coffee with Lion’s Mane, a mushroom known for its brain-boosting effects, like improving focus, for the first time.
The new Caffeine Coffee Plus menu now features two mushroom-based products plus matcha with collagen for beauty and skin support and protein and açaí lattes.
The partners behind the functional powders are key. They deliver on function, securing quality and transparency but also help to enrich the taste. Reitan Convenience Lithuania chose local start up companies as its partners – DailySpoon for Protein and Sooo.me for Collagen, açaí Cordyceps and Lions’ Mane.
Quality matters more than the ingredient name
When ingredients become popular, quality starts to vary wildly.
“Lion’s Mane” can mean very different things depending on sourcing and processing. The same is true for Cordyceps, for collagen purity and peptide profile and for berry powders.
Sooo.me’s approach is simple:
- clean sourcing
- consistent standards
- tested, trustworthy and transparent
- developed
- to actually work in real life
This focus is critical because functional drinks only deserve a permanent place on the menu if they’re built on real quality, not marketing.
Key consumer trends influence and shape the latest offers
As convenience retail continues to evolve beyond traditional food-to-go, Reitan Convenience Lithuania has been monitoring the top trends on the other side of the Atlantic. Once they reached Lithuania three to four years down the line, Kaminskaitė says. Today that gap has closed to one year. The trend to functional consumption is being driven by the growth of biotech; new wearable technology, which helps people monitor their health and how they sleep etc; an increasing number of supplements in sports and beauty with many offering dual benefits for physical performance and aesthetic outcomes plus healthier lifestyles – Gen Z, for example, tends to consume less alcohol than other age groups.
Demand for products with less sugar continues to grow as a global consumer trend, and Caffeine is responding to this shift through its evolving menu. Historically, the brand has been well known for its indulgent signature coffees—often positioned closer to a dessert than a beverage. More recently, changing consumer preferences have highlighted a growing appreciation for balanced flavours and reduced sweetness. This was particularly evident in the strong reception of Caffeine’s seasonal cinnamon bun–style matcha, where customer feedback most often praised the product for “not being too sweet”.
In the Baltics, as elsewhere, influencers are beginning to play a key role in the media by promoting functional coffee, speaking about specific gut and wellness benefits. Moving forward, Kaminskaitė suggests Caffeine may pick personalities to represent specific types of functional coffee.
While the Coffee Plus launch is currently focused on Caffeine as a coffee-led concept, looking ahead, Reitan Convenience Lithuania is considering how it can take the learnings and, over time, inform how functional coffee experiences might be adapted to the convenience channel as well.
Continue the conversation
The growth of foodservice is just one part of a much bigger shift taking place across convenience retail. In our upcoming webinar, Lina, alongside Puma’s Janet Sithole, Kalibrate’s Simon Martin and Dan Munford will share further insights into how changing consumer behaviours, social media trends and QSR innovation are influencing retailer strategies globally. Register to join the live discussion or watch on demand.
