“Is Stok owned by Ryan Reynolds” is a question a lot of people type into a search box, and the reason is easy to reconstruct. You watch a Super Bowl ad for a cold brew coffee that has the exact comic register of a Ryan Reynolds ad. It stars the football club Ryan Reynolds owns. Ryan Reynolds posts about it. A reasonable person concludes Ryan Reynolds owns the coffee.
He does not. Stok Cold Brew is a Danone brand — and the gap between what he owns and what he is merely attached to is the most useful thing about the question.
Who actually owns Stok
Stok Cold Brew sits in Danone North America’s portfolio. Danone acquired it as part of its purchase of WhiteWave Foods, the Silk and Horizon Organic owner it agreed to buy in July 2016 in a deal valued at roughly $12.5 billion including assumed debt. WhiteWave had rolled its ready-to-drink cold brew line out that same autumn; the brand has been inside a multinational dairy and beverage group essentially from the start.
There is no celebrity founder here, no equity carve-out, no cap table story. It is a large-company brand with a large company’s marketing budget.
| Party | Relationship to STōK | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhiteWave Foods | Launched STōK Cold-Brew Coffee nationally | Sept. 21, 2016 | WhiteWave release |
| Danone | Completed its acquisition of WhiteWave, at $56.25 a share in cash | Apr. 12, 2017 | Danone release |
| Danone North America | Owner: markets STōK as one of its brands | Feb. 5, 2025 | Danone North America release |
| Maximum Effort (Ryan Reynolds) | Agency: made STōK’s first Big Game ad with Danone Internal Agency | Feb. 2, 2024 | Danone release |
| Wrexham AFC (Reynolds and Rob McElhenney) | Sponsored: STōK stadium naming rights from July 1, 2023 | May 25, 2023 | Wrexham AFC |
| Ryan Reynolds | No ownership stake | Feb. 2025 | Named in Danone’s releases only as Wrexham co-owner and through Maximum Effort |
The three Reynolds businesses touching it
What confuses the picture is that Reynolds is genuinely involved — three separate times over, through three different companies, none of which is Stok.
Maximum Effort. The production and marketing company Reynolds co-founded made Stok’s Super Bowl advertising, working with Danone’s own internal agency. That is a client relationship. Maximum Effort was acquired by the performance-TV platform MNTN in 2021, and MNTN divested it on April 1, 2025, transferring the interest to an affiliate of its original owner ahead of the company’s IPO. Reynolds remains MNTN’s chief creative officer.
Wrexham AFC. Reynolds and Rob McElhenney own the Welsh club. In July 2023, Stok Cold Brew became its official stadium sponsor. So Reynolds owns an asset that takes sponsorship money from a Danone brand — which is close to the opposite of owning the Danone brand.
His own audience. Reynolds reposted Stok’s 2024 Super Bowl spot, which starred Wrexham alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins. The 2025 follow-up paired Wrexham with Channing Tatum. When the most recognisable person associated with a campaign amplifies it from his personal account, the campaign reads as his.
Stack those three and you get a brand that looks Reynolds-owned from every angle a viewer can see, and is not Reynolds-owned in any legal sense.
What he does own — and why the distinction is worth money
The reason the confusion matters is that Reynolds has built a genuinely unusual business on the opposite of this arrangement.
He took equity in Aviation American Gin in 2018 and kept an ongoing interest even after Diageo bought the brand in August 2020 in a deal worth up to $610 million. He held a stake reported at roughly 25% of Mint Mobile’s parent company when T-Mobile agreed to acquire it in a transaction worth up to $1.35 billion. Those are the deals that make him interesting as a businessman rather than as a pitchman — the full mechanics are here.
Stok is the control case. Same creative voice, same distribution through his channels, same apparent endorsement — and, because there is no equity attached, none of the upside. If Stok doubles in the next five years, Danone’s shareholders capture that. Reynolds captures an agency fee and a stadium sponsorship.
Why he’d take the deal anyway
None of which makes the Stok work a mistake. Agency revenue is real revenue, and a Super Bowl campaign that becomes a cultural moment is the single best advertisement Maximum Effort can run for itself. The Wrexham sponsorship funds a football club Reynolds is trying to grow into a global property in its own right.
But it is worth naming what kind of deal it is. The Casamigos and Fenty Beauty structures turned famous people into owners of appreciating assets. The Stok relationship turns a famous person into a very well-paid, very effective vendor. Both are good businesses. Only one of them compounds.
The takeaway
If you searched this because you wanted to know whether buying a Stok Cold Brew puts money in Ryan Reynolds’ pocket: indirectly, a little, through advertising fees and a sponsorship contract with his football club. Directly, through ownership: no. Danone owns Stok.
That ambiguity is not an accident of the campaign. It is what the campaign was built to produce — and the fact that so many people have to search to resolve it is the clearest measure of how well it worked.
More ownership breakdowns: who owns SKIMS, how Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty stake works and how Casamigos became a $1 billion exit.
Frequently asked questions
Is Stok Cold Brew owned by Ryan Reynolds? No. Stok Cold Brew is a Danone North America brand. Danone came to own it through its acquisition of WhiteWave Foods, agreed in July 2016 in a deal valued at roughly $12.5 billion. Ryan Reynolds has no ownership stake in Stok.
Why does Ryan Reynolds appear in Stok Cold Brew’s advertising? Because his production and marketing company, Maximum Effort, made the ads. Stok’s Super Bowl spots were created by Maximum Effort in collaboration with Danone’s internal agency, and they leaned on Wrexham AFC — the Welsh club Reynolds co-owns with Rob McElhenney — with the 2024 ad featuring Wrexham and Sir Anthony Hopkins and the 2025 spot pairing Wrexham with Channing Tatum. Reynolds also amplified the 2024 ad on his own channels.
What is the connection between Stok Cold Brew and Wrexham AFC? Stok Cold Brew became the official stadium sponsor of Wrexham AFC in July 2023. Reynolds and Rob McElhenney own the club; Danone owns Stok. It is a sponsorship agreement between two separately owned businesses, which is precisely why it does not make Reynolds an owner of the coffee brand.
Which brands does Ryan Reynolds actually own? Reynolds took an equity stake in Aviation American Gin in 2018 and retained an ongoing interest after Diageo acquired it in August 2020 in a deal worth up to $610 million. He held a stake reported at around 25% of Mint Mobile’s parent, Ka’ena Corporation, which T-Mobile agreed to acquire in a deal worth up to $1.35 billion. He co-owns Wrexham AFC with Rob McElhenney, co-founded Maximum Effort, and serves as chief creative officer of the performance-TV platform MNTN.
Who owns Stok coffee (STōK Cold Brew)? Danone North America. STōK, the brand’s own spelling, was launched nationally by WhiteWave Foods in September 2016, and Danone completed its acquisition of WhiteWave in April 2017. Danone North America was still marketing STōK Cold Brew Coffee as one of its brands in its February 2025 Big Game campaign.
