Kube & Co Targets Cafes and Retail With Flavored Coffee Ice Cube Line
The Cornell-founded startup won $5,500 at the 2026 Hospitality Business Plan Competition and is pushing its powder-based flavored coffee ice cubes toward cafes, retail and hospitality channels.
- Competition prize
- Top undergraduate team, won $5,500 and Audience Choice Award at Cornell 2026
- Current flavors
- Madagascar Vanilla, Dutch Mocha ($6 each) and Pure Espresso ($5)
- Founder backgrounds
- Founders bring Michelin kitchen and national triathlon experience (reported)
- Distribution
- Direct-to-consumer; expanding toward cafés, retail and hospitality
- Pack yield
- Each package makes 15 standard cubes (reported)
Kube & Co, a startup founded by two Cornell student-athletes, is moving its flavored coffee ice cube concept beyond campus following a competition win and early direct-to-consumer traction. The company sells powder packs that consumers mix with water, freeze into cubes, and drop into iced coffee drinks, positioning the product as a solution to dilution in cold coffee beverages.
The brand currently offers three flavors through its own website: Madagascar Vanilla and Dutch Mocha, each priced at $6 per pack, and Pure Espresso at $5. Each package makes 15 standard cubes, per the company. Kube & Co also sells a branded ice cube tray for $14 and offers free shipping on orders above $30. The company says the idea emerged during a 14-mile run at Cornell and was developed through hundreds of test batches before launch.
The founders, identified on the company's website as Ben and Michael, bring complementary backgrounds to the venture, per the company. Ben worked as a chef in a Michelin-recognized restaurant, while Michael is a member of the U.S. Virgin Islands National Triathlon Team and holds a background in food science. The pair placed as the top undergraduate team at Cornell's 2026 Hospitality Business Plan Competition, taking home the Audience Choice Award and $5,500 in prize money. The brand is now pushing toward cafes, retail and hospitality channels.
Why it matters
Flavored ice formats occupy a narrow but growing niche within the broader iced coffee accessories segment, which has expanded alongside sustained consumer interest in at-home cold brew preparation. Kube & Co's powder-based approach differentiates the product from simply freezing brewed coffee, a comparison the company addresses directly in its marketing. The competition win provides modest but meaningful validation for a student-founded CPG concept that is still building distribution infrastructure. A move into cafes and hospitality channels, if executed, would represent a meaningful step from direct-to-consumer novelty toward institutional volume, and would test whether the format can scale beyond the home kitchen.
What to watch
The open question is whether Kube & Co can convert its competition momentum into signed wholesale or hospitality accounts, and at what price point cafes would incorporate a branded flavored cube into their existing cold coffee programs.
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