Foodtech

Back to the Chicory Root: A Young Founder Makes Iced Coffee Without Beans

co-produced by AI30. October 2026, 10:20

Collage of Cuperior founder Sebastian Fuchshuber between cans of the beanless iced coffee Frankly Coffee 2.0 — Sebastian Fuchshuber, founder of Cuperior, and his beanless iced coffee Frankly. © Cuperior

Iced coffee without a single coffee bean, invented by a descendant of the family that once supplied half of Europe with coffee substitutes. The Vienna-based start-up Cuperior is bringing Frankly Coffee 2.0 to store shelves, an iced coffee made from roasted chicory root and oats. The brand is the work of Sebastian Fuchshuber, a 25-year-old from Linz, Austria, who is drawing on a rather old family recipe.

A Legacy From the 19th Century

Mr. Fuchshuber says he is a descendant of Johann Heinrich Franck, one of the pioneers of chicory coffee in the German-speaking world. According to the Stuttgarter Zeitung, the confectioner and spice merchant from Vaihingen an der Enz in southwestern Germany began producing chicory coffee in 1828. Unlike his competitors, he blended the ground root with barley, malt and rye. His sons later moved the factory to Ludwigsburg, and in 1879 the company opened a branch in Linz. To this day, the Franckviertel neighborhood and Franckstraße street there are reminders of the former production site.

Over the decades, the family business grew into a large company. After merging with the Kathreiner malt coffee factories, it launched the instant grain coffee Caro in 1954, and in 1971 it became part of Nestlé. Mr. Fuchshuber came up with the idea for Frankly at family gatherings, where he learned about his ancestors’ coffee history. He founded Cuperior in 2024 with Felix Hammer-Purgstall, who serves as chief operating officer. The University of Applied Sciences in Wieselburg also helped with development.

What Frankly Offers

Frankly Coffee 2.0 is a ready-to-drink iced coffee in a 250-milliliter can, vegan and 100 percent free of coffee beans. The key details, according to Cuperior:

Base: Roasted chicory root from France provides the coffee-like aroma, while oats add a light caramel note. The drink is meant to taste of nuts and chocolate.
Caffeine: Frankly does not do without a pick-me-up entirely. The caffeine is added and comes from Switzerland, according to the company.
Fiber: Chicory contains inulin, a prebiotic fiber. One can provides 4.8 grams of fiber.
Supply chain: All ingredients and supply chains are based in Europe.
Environmental footprint: According to a life-cycle analysis cited by the start-up, Frankly causes about 70 percent less carbon dioxide emissions and uses about 72 percent less water than conventional iced coffee.

Chicory grows along roadsides in many parts of Austria and is considered resilient to climate change. That is the core of Mr. Fuchshuber’s argument.

Why Coffee Needs Rethinking

Coffee is part of daily life for many people, but its cultivation is under growing pressure. A 2022 study by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, published in the journal PLOS ONE, concluded that coffee is the crop most vulnerable to climate change among those studied, with suitable growing areas shrinking in all major producing countries, including Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia. On top of that, more and more farmers are switching to other crops when coffee no longer pays off. Mr. Fuchshuber also points to rainforest clearing, child labor and difficult working conditions in many growing regions.

For him, “back to the root” is therefore more than a slogan. He said he wants to show that innovation in food can create new possibilities without anyone having to give up enjoyment.

500 Retail Outlets and a Move Into Germany

Since entering the market in mid-2025, Frankly has become a brand available across Austria. According to Cuperior, the drink is now sold at about 500 retail outlets, including the drugstore chain dm and the supermarket chains Spar and Billa Corso. Next, the start-up plans to expand further in Austria, enter the German market and launch new flavors. Cuperior also wants to further develop the drink’s functional benefits.

Beanless Coffee Is a Global Trend

Cuperior is not alone with the idea. In Austria, the Salzburg-based start-up Rootery Coffee sells coffee capsules made from chicory root. Internationally, an entire industry has formed around beanless coffee: Atomo Coffee in the United States has raised nearly $60 million (about €54 million) since 2019 and counts the Japanese beverage giant Suntory among its investors. Singapore’s Prefer raised $4.2 million, and Belgium’s Koppie Bean raised an undisclosed sum. And the classic among coffee alternatives comes, of all places, from Mr. Fuchshuber’s family history: Caro now belongs to Nestlé.

What Beanless Coffee Means for Smallholders

Whether beanless coffee will actually upend the market remains to be seen. Steffen Schwarz, managing director of the Coffee Consulate in Mannheim, Germany, told the trade publication Perfect Daily Grind that he expects the products to coexist with coffee rather than replace it. He also warned of a downside: If the world drank less coffee, shrinking demand and falling prices could hit smallholder farmers the hardest, the very people whose situation the new providers want to improve. Andy Kleitsch, the chief executive of Atomo, countered that beanless coffee is the least of farmers’ problems. But to succeed, he said, the products must above all taste good, be better for consumers and be competitively priced.