John Butcher has been at the helm of Caribou Coffee over an eventful seven years. Under his tenure, the Brooklyn Center-based coffee chain launched a new domestic franchising program and underwent several complex corporate maneuvers by its foreign ownership group.

Now, Butcher, 49, is set to step down as CEO and president, Caribou announced Monday. The change takes effect March 14 officially, though Butcher will continue on in an advisory role through the end of May.

Scott Kennedy, another former Target Corp. executive like Butcher, has been tapped to serve as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement. Kennedy signed on as CFO in October 2019, less than a year after Butcher was promoted to CEO. Butcher first became president in 2017 after more than two decades at Target.

In a news release, Caribou chairman Konrad Mayer thanked Butcher for his leadership and said that “the board looks forward to working with John and Scott during this transition as we set our sights on accelerating growth across North America and internationally.”

A lot has happened at Caribou during Butcher’s years in charge.

In October 2021, the company launched its first domestic franchising program. Caribou already had a similar program for locations outside the United States.

In April 2023, Caribou said it had lined up deals for over 300 new franchise stores in the U.S. At the end of 2024, the company had over 800 locations total around the world, including 361 franchise stores across 11 countries.

A little over a year ago, Caribou offloaded its Brooklyn Center roasting business onto JDE Peet’s, which is also owned by Luxembourg-based conglomerate JAB Holding Co.

Within the last year, there had been rumors that JAB was planning to sell Caribou, though those have not yet come to fruition. Caribou itself openly talked about plans to return to the public markets back in 2021, but those also never came to fruition.

Before JAB acquired it in 2014, Caribou had been publicly traded since 2005.

JAB also owns Panera Bread Co. and Einstein Bagels. In 2021, JAB announced that it would fold Panera, Einstein, and Caribou into one business unit.

Though it’s beloved locally, Caribou has had a difficult time gaining market share amid fierce competition from bigger coffee companies.

“My take is that the biggest factor behind Caribou’s slip in national market share has been the aggressive expansion of its competitors,” said Kevin Schrimpf, director of industry research at Technomic Ignite. “Caribou is getting squeezed in both directions by the continued store growth of bigger players like Starbucks and Dunkin as well the proliferation of smaller upstarts. For context, Starbucks has opened over 500 new U.S. stores just in the last year, which is bigger than Caribou’s entire system.”

Executive editor Adam Platt contributed to this report.