DaVinci Gourmet is a global beverage-solutions brand specializing in flavored syrups, sauces, beverage mixes, smoothie and frappé products, and other ingredients used to create specialty beverages. The brand is particularly associated with coffee shops, cafés, restaurants, hotels, bars, and professional baristas and mixologists. It operates as part of Kerry, the global food and beverage company.

DaVinci Gourmet originated in Seattle, Washington, in 1989, during the rise of the specialty-coffee movement. Its founder, chocolate maker Greg Davenport, identified an opportunity to create a syrup that would deliver strong flavor and perform consistently in both hot and cold beverages. Today, DaVinci Gourmet positions itself around the intersection of flavor, creativity, beverage craftsmanship, and food science, providing ingredients intended to help beverage professionals create consistent and customizable drinks. 1

Origins in Seattle

DaVinci Gourmet was established in 1989 in Seattle, a city that was becoming an important center of specialty coffee culture. The company states that Greg Davenport, a chocolate maker and the brand’s founder, saw an opportunity to develop a syrup specifically suited to the emerging specialty-beverage market. The original concept focused on creating a syrup with strong flavor and reliable performance whether used in an iced or hot drink. This innovation gave cafés another way to customize beverages and helped establish flavored beverages as a significant component of specialty coffee culture.

Expansion Beyond Coffee

Following its inception, DaVinci Gourmet expanded beyond traditional coffee applications. The company’s development involved collaboration with cafés, roasters, distributors, and beverage makers, adapting products and formulations to meet the demands of an increasingly diverse specialty-beverage market. Its product range eventually extended to include:

• Espresso-based drinks
• Flavored lattes
• Iced coffee
• Frappés
• Smoothies
• Milkshakes and other blended drinks
• Cocktails
• Mocktails
• Lemonades and refreshers
• Signature sodas
• Desserts and culinary applications

Kerry describes DaVinci Gourmet as a brand serving cafés, coffeehouses, bars, restaurants, hotels, catering businesses, and educational campuses globally.

DaVinci Gourmet is currently part of Kerry, a major international food and beverage company. Kerry integrates DaVinci Gourmet into its foodservice portfolio alongside other beverage and culinary brands. This relationship allows DaVinci Gourmet to combine the creative aspects of beverage making with Kerry’s broader capabilities in flavor technology, ingredients, formulation, and food science. The company’s regional brand story explicitly describes this approach as the combination of “Craft,” “Science,” and “Art.”

DaVinci Gourmet’s product portfolio extends significantly beyond flavored coffee syrups.

Syrups

Syrups remain the product category most closely associated with DaVinci Gourmet. The current portfolio includes traditional flavor profiles as well as fruit, dessert, nut, coffee, and seasonal flavors. Examples include:

• Caramel
• Vanilla
• Hazelnut
• Almond
• Amaretto
• Coconut
• Chocolate
• Brown sugar
• Macadamia
• English toffee
• Peach
• Passion fruit
• Blood orange
• Pumpkin pie
• Cookie butter
• Banana bread

The portfolio also includes sugar-free syrups and products positioned around natural or clean-label formulations.

Sauces

The brand produces thicker beverage and dessert sauces designed to add flavor, texture, and visual presentation. Current offerings include products such as:

• Caramel sauce
• Chocolate sauce
• White chocolate sauce
• Pumpkin pie sauce
• Sugar-free caramel sauce
• Sugar-free chocolate sauce
• Sweet cream products

These sauces can be used inside beverages or as toppings and finishing ingredients.

Smoothies and Frappés

DaVinci Gourmet supplies mixes and bases for smoothies, frappés, and blended beverages, enabling operators to produce drinks more consistently while reducing preparation complexity.

Beverage Mixes and Bases

Depending on the market, the portfolio includes beverage bases, concentrates, powders, fruit mixes, chai products, and other components. Product availability varies by country and region.

Unlike many consumer flavor brands, DaVinci Gourmet has historically maintained a strong foodservice and professional-beverage orientation. Its primary users include:

• Baristas
• Café owners and operators
• Coffee roasters
• Bartenders
• Mixologists
• Restaurant operators
• Hotel beverage teams
• Catering companies
• Beverage developers

The company emphasizes not only the products themselves but also recipes, technical support, menu development, and beverage expertise. This positioning makes DaVinci Gourmet comparable to a professional beverage-ingredient platform rather than simply a flavored-syrup manufacturer.

DaVinci Gourmet’s current brand positioning centers on the idea of “Drink Curious.” The company encourages experimentation with flavors and views the beverage creator—rather than the ingredient manufacturer—as the central creative figure. Stated brand attributes include:

• Bolder flavor: Emphasizing recognizable and multidimensional flavor.
• Creative compilation: Combining different flavors and ingredients to create distinctive beverages.
• Passion for innovation: Developing new flavors and beverage concepts.
• Unmatched quality: Focusing on ingredients and professional beverage performance.
• Best-in-class support: Providing recipes, expertise, and assistance to beverage professionals.

This philosophy summarizes the brand’s role: DaVinci Gourmet provides the ingredients and expertise; the barista or mixologist provides the creative expression.

A useful framework for understanding the brand is its Craft–Science–Art model:

• Craft: Refers to understanding how beverage professionals work, including their equipment, operational constraints, customers, and commercial requirements.
• Science: Refers to Kerry’s ingredient, flavor, and formulation technologies, which DaVinci Gourmet uses to develop beverage products.
• Art: Refers to the creative side of beverage preparation, providing baristas and mixologists with a broad palette of flavors to create signature drinks.

This combination differentiates DaVinci Gourmet from brands that simply sell flavoring. Its proposition is essentially flavor + technical performance + creative inspiration.

Coffee remains central to the identity of DaVinci Gourmet. Born during Seattle’s specialty-coffee boom, the brand continues to develop products specifically for café beverages. Its syrups allow operators to transform basic espresso, milk, or iced coffee into a wider range of menu items. For example, a café can use flavored syrup to create:

Espresso → milk → DaVinci flavor → finished specialty latte

This underlying approach adapts to iced coffee, cold brew, frappés, seasonal beverages, and other drinks. Flavored syrups are particularly useful for cafés because a relatively small number of base ingredients can support a large and constantly changing menu.

DaVinci Gourmet has expanded its positioning into cocktails and mocktails. Current collections explicitly include craft cocktails, mocktails, signature sodas, refreshers, and lemonades. This expansion reflects a broader trend in modern beverage culture where flavors traditionally associated with coffee—such as caramel, vanilla, chocolate, and fruit—are incorporated into non-coffee drinks. Consequently, the brand increasingly presents itself as a general beverage flavor platform rather than exclusively a coffee-syrup company.

DaVinci Gourmet began as a Seattle-based brand but has developed an international presence. Kerry states that the brand is available in more than 60 countries, with products and solutions adapted to different beverage markets. Regional portfolios can differ considerably; for instance, materials for the Asia-Pacific/Middle East/Africa regions emphasize categories such as syrups, sauces, fruit mixes, beverage bases, concentrates, and powders. This regional adaptation is necessary because beverage preferences differ significantly between markets.

DaVinci Gourmet has increasingly incorporated sustainability into its brand activities. In December 2025, Kerry announced that DaVinci Gourmet had transitioned 100% of the cocoa used across its sauces, syrups, and powders to Rainforest Alliance Certified sources. Kerry presented this as part of the brand’s effort to improve the sustainability of its chocolate-related ingredients.

The brand also highlights its relationship with the coffee community. Its U.S. materials mention support for organizations such as the Specialty Coffee Association and sponsorship of the Café Femenino Foundation, which works to support women coffee producers.

From a branding perspective, DaVinci Gourmet occupies a position between professional foodservice and lifestyle beverage culture. Its identity combines:

Seattle coffee heritage → professional barista expertise → flavor innovation → premium ingredients → creative beverage preparation → global foodservice distribution

The name “DaVinci” reinforces the company’s emphasis on creativity and craftsmanship, although official historical material identifies the Seattle specialty-coffee movement and Greg Davenport’s syrup concept—not Leonardo da Vinci—as the actual origin of the business.

DaVinci Gourmet competes in the broader market for professional beverage ingredients and flavor systems. Its competitive proposition extends beyond selling flavored syrup to providing an entire ecosystem:

• Flavor ingredients
• Beverage bases
• Sauces
• Mixes
• Recipes
• Menu inspiration
• Beverage-development expertise
• Professional support
• Global distribution

This ecosystem is particularly relevant to commercial cafés, where consistency is critical. A café requires the same drink to taste substantially the same regardless of which barista prepares it.

Several characteristics define the brand:

1. Seattle specialty-coffee heritage: Its origin gives the brand a strong connection to the specialty-coffee industry.
2. Strong flavor specialization: Rather than being primarily a coffee producer, DaVinci Gourmet specializes in the flavors and supporting ingredients that transform beverages.
3. Professional orientation: The brand focuses heavily on cafés, bars, restaurants, and beverage professionals rather than only household consumers.
4. Broad flavor portfolio: The range extends from traditional coffee flavors to fruit, dessert, seasonal, and contemporary flavors.
5. Combination of creativity and food science: Its positioning deliberately combines artistic beverage creation with formulation and ingredient science.
6. Part of a larger global food company: Being part of Kerry gives DaVinci Gourmet access to broader food-and-beverage technology and international infrastructure.

In summary, DaVinci Gourmet is a Seattle-born, Kerry-owned global beverage-ingredient brand founded in 1989 that helps cafés, baristas, bartenders, and other beverage professionals create customized drinks through flavored syrups, sauces, mixes, bases, and related flavor solutions. 2 3

1. DaVinci Gourmet
2. Premium Beverage Ingredients for Cafes & Bars | DaVinci Gourmet
3. DaVinci Gourmet | Kerry Foodservice | Kerry North American Brands