Identity: Everything a Customer Sees, Touches, Hears, and Tastes

This month we will be focus­ing on Tip 3 in our “10 Tip to Jumpstart your Café “series.

From Tip 1 – we cre­ated your Brand Experience (http://magazine.coffeetalk.com/february13-branding-tip/). We cre­ated a story or emo­tion behind your café expe­ri­ence. From this we have visu­als and a brand imagery visual col­lage from which to cre­ate your Identity.

From Tip 2 – (http://magazine.coffeetalk.com/march13-branding-tip/). We learned to research and under­stand your cus­tomer demo­graphic and can relate your brand to their inter­ests, hob­bies, loca­tional desires, and back­grounds. Now, we are ready to cre­ate your café’s IDENTITY.

Identity is dif­fer­ent than your brand. In a brick and mor­tar con­cept such as a café, restau­rant, or wine bar, iden­tity is the visual, tac­tile, and sen­so­r­ial aspects of your brand. Usually the iden­tity is a set of guide­lines that mon­i­tors how col­ors, fonts, lay­outs, mate­ri­als, pat­terns, sounds, and menu orga­ni­za­tion are set forth. If you are rolling out your café to numer­ous loca­tions, have a set of guide­lines is crit­i­cal to insure consistency.

First impres­sions are every­thing. What is your café’s first impres­sion? From the time a cus­tomer sees your web­site, hears about your café from oth­ers, to see­ing your signs and ban­ners, to touch­ing and tast­ing your cup of cof­fee and bites of food, hav­ing a strong and con­sis­tent iden­tity guide­line is key to the suc­cess­ful and ongo­ing con­nec­tion that a cus­tomer will have towards your brand.

Customers often visit your web­site, your online reviews, and social media. If you are unable to con­stantly mon­i­tor and update your on-line iden­tity and pres­ence, hire a con­sul­tant to do so. Some cus­tomers will make deci­sions based on your online reviews, web­site, Facebook pho­tos, and other write-ups.

What iden­tity mes­sag­ing are you pre­sent­ing in your menu? The con­tent and lay­out of the menu also con­veys an iden­tity. Make sure it is con­sis­tent with your over­all brand expe­ri­ence. If your menu items are local and sus­tain­able, include your sources in your menu and mar­ket­ing. Share your unique roast­ing meth­ods and sources for your beans or high­light your spe­cial and unique menu items.

The fol­low­ing are iden­tity or “image” devices for a con­cept:
• A Logo (The sym­bol of the entire iden­tity & brand)
• Stationery (Letterhead, busi­ness card, envelopes, etc.)
• Marketing Collateral (Flyers, brochures, books, web­sites, etc.)
• Products & Packaging (Products sold and the pack­ag­ing in which they come in)
• Apparel Design (Tangible cloth­ing items that are worn by employ­ees)
• Signage & Menus (Interior & exte­rior design)
• Messages & Actions (Messages con­veyed via indi­rect or direct modes of com­mu­ni­ca­tion)
• Other Communication (Audio, smell, touch, etc.)
• Anything visual that rep­re­sents the business.

All of these things make up an iden­tity and should sup­port the brand as a whole. The logo how­ever, is the café iden­tity and brand all wrapped up into one iden­ti­fi­able mark. This mark is the avatar and sym­bol of the busi­ness as a whole.

When nego­ti­at­ing a space with a land­lord or build­ing owner, have a strong iden­tity will aid in your nego­ti­a­tions and make you more attrac­tive to a land­lord. Making sure to include all your sig­nage loca­tions and require­ments in your lease, will insure you can inte­grate all sig­nage, sand­wich boards, blade and win­dow sig­nage upon open­ing and in the future. Include Grand Opening sig­nage too. This could mean more dol­lars for your build-out and more free rent to get you started!

Our 10 Tips Jumpstart Café pocket books allow you to write your thoughts in one com­plete book­let and it also prompts ques­tions to con­sider http://www.dynamikspace.com/store.php5
Stay tuned every month for valu­able tips. Melanie Corey-Ferrini is the founder of Dynamikspace (www.dynamikspace.com) and offers ser­vices from con­sult­ing to full ser­vice café creation.

Retailer/Roaster Profile

If you hap­pen to be in the area, it is quite hard to miss Sip Café, an all-glass café located in one of Boston’s beau­ti­ful down­town parks. I’m here to chat with the owner Jared Mancini about this awe­some place.

V. Hi Jared! How did you get into cof­fee indus­try?
M. This is going back to 10 years. I had no prior expo­sure to cof­fee what­so­ever. The inter­net com­pany I was work­ing for went out of busi­ness, and I needed a job. So, I got an inter­view at Torrefazione Italia, and that’s what really started the love affair. I fell in love with what they were doing and with the whole pre­sen­ta­tion; every once in a while, we even used to wear suits to work back then. The drip was noth­ing too phe­nom­e­nal, it was pri­mar­ily blends. What I really learned at Torrefazione was the whole café expe­ri­ence, mak­ing peo­ple happy and pre­sent­ing a prod­uct. There are many busi­ness own­ers in the indus­try who have a super pure style, but I want to do things with the high­est pos­si­ble qual­ity, while mak­ing peo­ple happy. For exam­ple, if some­body comes in and orders a Starbucks drink – caramel mac­chi­ato, we won’t have that, but we won’t have atti­tude about it. So we would say: “You know what? We don’t have a caramel mac­chi­ato, but what I can do sir, is to make you a vanilla latte, and I really think it would be bet­ter than what you are used to, or at least some­thing dif­fer­ent, and you can try that.”

V. Your café is absolutely stun­ning inside and out. Who built it?
M. I wish I could take more credit for it (laughs). The quick story is this is a square where the café is now, which was a big, ugly, con­crete park­ing garage around 20 years ago. Then this group came together, tore the garage down, and made this beau­ti­ful park, includ­ing this glass struc­ture where we are at now. Before we found out about this place and moved in, there was a café located here called Z Square, so I can­not take credit for the glass struc­ture and some things inside. But I can take credit for the aes­thet­ics. We com­pletely got rid of this gray, very ster­ile, dull and cold feel­ing of the pre­vi­ous café. They only lasted 6 months. We brought in a lot of color, wooden fur­ni­ture, and our espresso machin­ery. This café rep­re­sents our vision now.

V. What attracts cus­tomers to your busi­ness?
M. We have a reg­u­lar crowd of peo­ple and they come in just for the cof­fee. And once in a while one of these peo­ple hap­pens to have a lunch meet­ing here or some­thing, and they say “Wow, I didn’t real­ize you get a great lunch”. So there is a split between this whole group of peo­ple that come in just for cof­fee in the morn­ing, and those that come in just for lunch; but there are also those that come in for both now. Why peo­ple like us? I think it is the prod­uct, but I also think it is a lack of atti­tude. There are so many times I go into place and think “God man, is it an atti­tude extra today? Are you charg­ing extra for your atti­tude?” You know what I mean. I think most peo­ple have expe­ri­enced that. Here it is dif­fer­ent. I am always work­ing with my staff try­ing to make them pas­sion­ate about the prod­uct, but what is more impor­tant for me is for them to be more wel­com­ing and accept­ing and try­ing to make cus­tomers happy.

V.  What tips can you give to those in the cof­fee indus­try that start today?
M. Don’t be naïve and real­ize it is going to take time. I def­i­nitely thought that we would just start mak­ing money right away. It took me a few years to even pay myself. Luckily my wife had a good job. You have to have a pas­sion for what you are doing because you will most likely have to work with­out pay for a while. It takes time – busi­ness costs are high in big cities. Be patient, and plan for the fact that you won’t be bring­ing that much right away. Another thing is that you have to encour­age your staff and pay atten­tion to what they are doing. Make peo­ple feel appre­ci­ated and give them feed­back. Try to build a team atmos­phere from the start, so that every­one can watch each other’s back when needed.

V. It seems that the cur­rent econ­omy took its toll on many busi­ness own­ers around the coun­try. What about you?
M. Yup, we actu­ally did start in the mid­dle of this whole tur­moil. It will be four years in April since we are in busi­ness. However, I’ve always thought, “Hey, we are not sell­ing sports cars – it is cof­fee and sand­wiches – and we aren’t even super fancy”. In fact I think we might have even ben­e­fited from peo­ple shy­ing away from more lux­ury estab­lish­ments. We are more expen­sive than Dunkin Donuts, but I hope this is a bet­ter experience.

Sip Café

0 Post Office Square
Boston, MA, 02109
(617) 338‑3080
www.sipboston.com
Jared Mancini
jaredmancini@gmail.com

Mother Parkers Innovates With New Coffee Degassing Valve

The largest pri­vate label cof­fee roast­ing com­pany in North America is upgrad­ing its degassing process for flex­i­ble pack­aged cof­fee with a new degassing valve that con­tributes to prod­uct fresh­ness, elim­i­nates a step in the pack­ag­ing process and is help­ing to gen­er­ate sav­ings and increased effi­cien­cies dur­ing its first two stages of implementation.

The com­pany is Mississauga-based Mother Parkers Tea and Coffee, whose pas­sion for inno­va­tion has helped make the family-owned busi­ness the cof­fee sup­plier of choice to some of the world’s largest retail­ers and food ser­vice providers. Indeed, the motto that under­scores the company’s logo—“A Better Beverage Experience”—is derived from a his­tory of inno­va­tion that now spans over a century.

Recently, a drive to improve the pack­ag­ing process at Mother Parkers’ sprawl­ing Fort Worth, Texas man­u­fac­tur­ing plant led to the test­ing and adop­tion of the Avery Dennison Flexis® Coffee Pre-oiled valve, one of the most sig­nif­i­cant degassing valve inno­va­tions in the cof­fee indus­try in the past decade.

“We found through our inter­nal test­ing that the valve was less prone to fail­ure than our exist­ing flex­i­ble valves,” says Kelly Harber, the plant’s Maintenance/Manufacturing Projects Manager.

The test­ing was a six-month process that eval­u­ated the new valve against the plant’s exist­ing flex­i­ble and heat seal-applied hard but­ton valves. Tests cov­ered O2 resis­tance, extended shelf life per­for­mance, adhe­sion, and dispensability.

The tests were con­ducted on Accraply valve appli­ca­tor sys­tems equipped with an Avery Dennison ALS 204 dis­pens­ing head. The Flexis valve per­formed with lit­tle to no fail­ures or leak­age. In addi­tion to run­ning faster and degassing with greater effi­ciency than the exist­ing degassing valves, the pre-oiled Flexis valves also made for a cleaner run­ning and more effi­cient pack­ag­ing operation.

“The pre-oiled fea­ture elim­i­nates a step in the pack­ag­ing oper­a­tion,” Harber explains. ”The pre­vi­ous flex­i­ble valves required us to apply oil dur­ing the valve appli­ca­tion process. This entailed keep­ing inven­tory of oil and keep­ing our equip­ment cal­i­brated for dis­pens­ing the cor­rect amount onto an exact valve loca­tion. The Flexis valve is pre-oiled with food-grade sil­i­cone oil when it is man­u­fac­tured. “Plus, the pre-oiled valve makes for a cleaner run­ning appli­ca­tor and pro­duc­tion envi­ron­ment because there’s no need for online oil application.”

The Flexis Coffee Pre-oiled Valve
“According to Bill Hartman, the Avery Dennison busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ager who worked with Harber on the con­ver­sion to Flexis, valve degassing has been an over­looked effi­ciency oppor­tu­nity. “Innovative busi­nesses like Mother Parkers are now cap­i­tal­iz­ing on a rel­a­tively sim­ple process improve­ment. The new valve offers fresh­ness, pack­ag­ing and cost effi­ciency advan­tages com­pared to other types of valves. It’s also often a pre­ferred alter­na­tive to bin degassing, which involves a major cap­i­tal out­lay and can take 8–24 hours or longer to com­plete, tying up inven­tory and rob­bing the cof­fee of freshness.”

“The one-way valve per­mits us to pack­age straight into a bag,” adds Harber. “If you don’t have a valve, the cof­fee will degas and the bags will bal­loon. One-way valves con­tribute to fresh­ness by let­ting gas out and not let­ting oxy­gen in. All cof­fee valves are one-way, but some per­form bet­ter than others.”

The new Flexis valve has a tri-layered con­struc­tion that allows the escape of CO2 while inhibit­ing the entry of O2. As pack­aged beans degas CO2 pres­sure builds and then enters and escapes through the top baf­fle layer. Once degassing is com­plete, the valve re-seals to pre­vent oxy­gen from re-entering the cof­fee pack­age. The con­struc­tion gen­er­ally keeps resid­ual oxy­gen at two per­cent or less, a fig­ure that equals indus­try standards.

Throughput
Mother Parkers’ pre­vi­ous valve pack­ag­ing speed was 55 valves per minute with the old flex­i­ble valves and 45 valves per minute with hard but­ton valves.

“Stage one of our con­ver­sion to Flexis involved ramp­ing up on the new Accraply machines,” Harber says. “The tran­si­tion, once test­ing and qual­i­fi­ca­tion runs where cer­ti­fied, only took a day. The imple­men­ta­tion
of stage two went seam­lessly as well.”

Flexis Coffee valves can be applied using Accraply label­ing sys­tems at speeds more than 30% faster than heat seal-applied hard but­ton degassing valves. That capa­bil­ity of through­put means fresher cof­fee and higher order fill rates for their customers.

A Brave New World

Over the last 36 months social net­works, social media and social gam­ing have become fun­da­men­tal medi­ums for com­mu­ni­cat­ing, shar­ing, enter­tain­ing and even dri­ving busi­ness. For many con­sumers and work­ing pro­fes­sion­als, Facebook and other social net­works such as LinkedIn have become a direct exten­sion of their daily lives. Social net­works and com­mu­ni­ca­tion plat­forms like Twitter cap­ture and influ­ence how, what and when groups of peo­ple com­mu­ni­cate, how large social groups of peo­ple are enter­tained via social games and video, and pro­vide a plat­form for how con­sumers share infor­ma­tion about their buy­ing expe­ri­ences and preferences.

Current research shows that 91% of mobile inter­net access is to “social­ize;” women ages 35–54 are the most active group in mobile social­iza­tion and 29% of all mobile users sur­veyed are “open” to scan­ning a mobile tag to get coupons. These are pow­er­ful trends that many cor­po­ra­tions are try­ing to tap into and they are directly impact­ing how com­pa­nies are mar­ket­ing, sell­ing and brand­ing them­selves to con­sumers and to busi­ness partners.

Most com­pa­nies are seek­ing ways to gain greater insight into cus­tomer pur­chas­ing pat­terns, pref­er­ences and needs. At the same time today’s tech-savvy, mobile con­sumers and work­ing pro­fes­sion­als expect to be informed, col­lab­o­rated with, and enter­tained while they per­form their day to day activ­i­ties. This is caus­ing many com­pa­nies to rethink legacy sales and mar­ket­ing strate­gies and many com­pa­nies are now attempt­ing to inte­grate social media, social net­work­ing, social gam­ing and mobile adver­tis­ing tech­niques into exist­ing mar­ket­ing, sales, brand­ing and cus­tomer ser­vice efforts.

Some retail­ers are redesign­ing cer­tain loca­tions in order to appear to be more “com­mu­nity” based or to become phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tions of a “social net­work” where large groups of con­sumers can go to social­ize and spend money while they share, col­lab­o­rate, and are entertained.

According to BIA/Kelsey’s U.S. Local Media Forecast (2011−2016), social media adver­tis­ing in the United States will grow from $3.8 bil­lion in 2011 to $9.8 bil­lion in 2016. The firm pro­jected the local seg­ment of social adver­tis­ing to grow from $840 mil­lion in 2011 to $3.1 bil­lion in 2016, rep­re­sent­ing a CAGR of 29.8 per­cent. Additionally, the report fore­casted a $4.8 bil­lion social media ad spend in 2012.

eMar­keter recently reported that a larger per­cent­age of cor­po­rate and prod­uct mar­ket­ing bud­gets are being spent on social media, social and mobile adver­tis­ing and video.

While social media spend­ing is increas­ing, the trend of inte­grat­ing cor­po­rate and prod­uct adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing into social and casual gam­ing also con­tin­ues to grow. Facebook reports over 1 bil­lion monthly users, con­trols 57% of all social net­work media adver­tis­ing and one of the largest most dom­i­nant providers of social and casual gam­ing in the world.

Between 2009 and 2012 the world­wide social gam­ing mar­ket grew from $1.84 bil­lion to over $6.2 bil­lion. The mar­ket is expected to be $7.49 bil­lion in 2013, and $8.64 bil­lion in 2014. This rep­re­sents not only mas­sive con­sumer adop­tion but cor­po­rate adop­tion as well.

For over 10 years many global cor­po­ra­tions have tested the impact of using video games and sim­u­la­tions to train employ­ees. Now they are begin­ning to inte­grate cor­po­rate and prod­uct brand­ing, prod­uct adver­tis­ing, prod­uct place­ments and coupons into social and casual games.

Utilizing games to enter­tain, edu­cate and inform con­sumers and work­ing pro­fes­sion­als appears to be a grow­ing trend that is not going away. Highly enter­tain­ing, addic­tive, social com­mu­ni­ca­tion devices like tablets and smart­phones are uti­lized by hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple on a daily basis to com­plete per­sonal and busi­ness tasks – and social net­work­ing, social gam­ing and social media are inte­grated directly into these devices.

Why not inte­grate a few highly addic­tive ingre­di­ents like cof­fee, social gam­ing and social net­work­ing into a sin­gle mar­ket­ing and sales experience?

There are hun­dreds of mil­lions of ipads, tablets and smart­phones that have been adopted within the con­sumer mar­ket. Those devices are highly enter­tain­ing and are highly effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion devices. These devices pro­vide users with an inte­grated work-play-social expe­ri­ence that users get addicted to and now they are begin­ning to pro­lif­er­ate within cor­po­rate workforces.

Companies like UPS, McDonalds, Cisco and Marriott are begin­ning to uti­lize social and casual games to recruit tal­ent, train and enable employ­ees and busi­ness part­ners, dis­trib­u­tors etc. Multiple com­pa­nies like Selleration Games and LifeGames are attempt­ing to inte­grate new hire assess­ment and screen­ing prac­tices into social and casual games so they can more effec­tively iden­tify can­di­dates who demon­strate “the right stuff.”

Schools at the K-12 lev­els are uti­liz­ing video games to teach stu­dents a vari­ety of top­ics and major Universities like Harvard and Oxford have report­edly devel­oped fun excit­ing video games to teach under­grads math, busi­ness and finan­cial top­ics. Major Universities are offer­ing free classes via Apple iTunes; you can now access Ivy League qual­ity cur­ricu­lum, edu­ca­tion, lec­tures via video etc. all through iTunes on your iPad or iPhone.

Every level of soci­ety, from chil­dren to pro­fes­sors to CEOs appear to be engaged with some aspect of social net­works, social media or social gam­ing. I can see a future where cor­po­ra­tions dis­trib­ute train­ing to con­sumers and work­ing pro­fes­sion­als through iTunes, deliver prod­uct train­ing, mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing via highly addic­tive, enter­tain­ing social games that can be deliv­ered on any tablet, PC or smart­phone or accessed via a social net­work like Facebook or Linkedin.

It’s a brave new world…perhaps it is time to rethink how we are using social net­works, social media and social gam­ing to attract and engage con­sumers and busi­ness part­ners within each of our indus­tries. The results should be quite powerful!

Mark Dallmeier is the co-founder of LifeGames, cre­ators of BaristaLife a new social game for the cof­fee indus­try (www.baristalife.net). Mark has co-founded a num­ber of soft­ware and ser­vices com­pa­nies, is a well known man­age­ment con­sul­tant and has held Chief Executive, Marketing, Strategy and Sales roles within mul­ti­ple companies.

The View

La Roya, also known as Coffee Rust fun­gus has moved from a minor irri­ta­tion in Latin America into a plague of mas­sive pro­por­tions. Why now? And, why at all? Without going all pseudo sci­en­tific, it would seem that the loom­ing threat of cli­mate change has finally shown itself and, as pre­dicted, cof­fee agri­cul­ture is the canary in the coalmine.

This is one of my pet phrases and it seems that a sur­pris­ing num­ber of folks have no idea what it means so, never let­ting a chance to be pedan­tic pass me by with­out a fight, I will explain it.

In England, before mod­ern sens­ing equip­ment, coalmin­ers used to take canaries in small cages down into the pits. Canaries are much more sen­si­tive to dan­ger­ous gases such as methane, a com­mon byprod­uct of coal. If the canary drops dead it is time to leave the mine, fast.

Coffee, par­tic­u­larly Arabica cof­fee, is very sen­si­tive to changes in its envi­ron­ment and grow­ing con­di­tions. When the trop­i­cal cli­matic con­di­tions started to change five or so years ago, the tem­per­a­ture started to go up and the usu­ally pre­dictable rain cycles began to be erratic. Coffee started to show the harm­ful effects.

In the thoughts of a few of us doom and gloom pre­dic­tors, the ques­tion was not whether the result­ing loss of yields would hap­pen, but rather how it would first man­i­fest itself. My money was on wide spread Borer Beetle infes­ta­tion (and in some respects that was cor­rect); but what seems to be killing the canary is Coffee Rust.

Coffee Rust seems so frag­ile and sim­ple but in the real world, it is the sin­gle most deadly cat­a­stro­phe Mother Nature can throw at cof­fee. It is a fun­gus, the least sophis­ti­cated of the higher orders of plants, but with a fierce will to sur­vive expelling bil­lions of spores into the wind and quickly spread­ing across a large area of cof­fee trees.

It has always been man­age­able, since the con­di­tions to sup­port Coffee Rust only occurred in small micro­cli­mate pock­ets. However last year con­di­tions across the Andean and Central American cof­fee regions all hit that tem­per­a­ture and rain sweet spot that La Roya loves so much.

The rea­son that Coffee Rust is such a fear­ful prob­lem is that once it hits a plant, it spreads rapidly unto the leaves block­ing the plants abil­ity to carry out pho­to­syn­the­sis. The leaves wither and drop pre­ma­turely, car­ry­ing the fun­gus to the leaf clut­ter below the tree. As new leaves form to replace the loss, the cof­fee rust reasserts itself upon the next rainy sea­son. Unlike other pests and dis­eases that can hit cof­fee, the dam­age is not lim­ited or selec­tive. It does not just wreck a few cher­ries, or shrivel a branch or two. Coffee Rust is homi­ci­dal and if left unchecked, depletes and may even­tu­ally kill the host tree. Use of expen­sive and poten­tially toxic fungi­cides as well as quar­an­tine and pre­emp­tive plant removal seem to be the prime defense against Coffee Rust. Eradication how­ever seems to not be pos­si­ble. And there is the prob­lem! By even the most con­ser­v­a­tive esti­mates, this cur­rent weather pat­tern is going to remain for at least the next year, which means that the poten­tial exists for a con­tin­u­ing destruc­tion of cof­fee plants. This poten­tially means total destruc­tion, not a tem­po­rary inconvenience.

Why does this mean destruc­tion? It is the “human fac­tor.” It does not mat­ter if the cur­rent weather pat­terns last for five years or five thou­sand years – let the sci­en­tists and politi­cians argue that out. From a prac­ti­cal aspect, once a farmer’s trees drop below a con­sis­tent min­i­mum yield to sup­port the fam­ily, the farm will cease to exist.

We face the prospect of hill­sides cov­ered with the skele­tal remains of cof­fee trees for as far as the eye can see. Sound apoc­a­lyp­tic, not really. Remember the American Elm, the Chestnut, and soon the Lodge Pole Pine forests of the Rocky Mountains? All were too spe­cial­ized and fell vic­tim to chang­ing conditions.

Within three years, farm­ers may be pulling out their cof­fee trees and replac­ing them with a new, more viable, agri­cul­tural, pas­toral, or real estate devel­op­ment enterprises.

It is sad that there is very lit­tle we can do. All the fuel-efficient cars and recy­cling pro­grams in the world – even if there was the polit­i­cal will to change today – can­not change this sit­u­a­tion quickly enough.

So are we sim­ply done? Well prob­a­bly not. There will still be cof­fee, albeit very expen­sive cof­fee and ulti­mately new vari­etals are com­ing on-line that are resis­tant to this plague. According to Peter Baker of CABI, the renowned sci­en­tific research insti­tute in London, “Resistant vari­etals are already avail­able. But many farm­ers haven’t planted them because spe­cialty roast­ers say the cup qual­ity is infe­rior. But some of them, like Castillo in Colombia for exam­ple, seem to have a pretty good cup pro­file.” Hopefully researchers will be proac­tive enough to also antic­i­pate the next plague com­ing down the pipeline – one can hope.

One thing is cer­tain how­ever. The world of cof­fee in Mexico, Central, and South America will look very dif­fer­ent than it does now. The Great American drought that cre­ated the dust bowl in the 1930’s ended for­ever the “40 acre and a mule” farm fam­ily in the USA and ush­ered in the era of cor­po­rate farm­ing. Corporate farm­ing is able to be more resilient to lose caused by weather or pests because the farms are so much more vast. A hail­storm can destroy 100 acres of wheat and barely effect the total farm yields on today’s agro-business farms

I pre­dict that the same will hap­pen in cof­fee. The small­holder farm will give way to the large cor­po­rate estate as big inter­na­tional money inter­ests pur­chase and con­sol­i­date the rav­aged lands once held by small fam­i­lies. Only big money will have the finan­cial oomph to invest what it will take to re-establish cof­fee pro­duc­tion in Latin America to the scale that it has been.

Is this a ter­ri­ble thing? I do not know – maybe, maybe not. It may be an inevitable and nat­ural pro­gres­sion that is only pre­cip­i­tated by La Roya. I hope though that I am wrong.

Kerri & Miles

Coffee Necessities: Sleeves, Cups, Mugs and Lids

Enter­ing a cof­fee shop is an expe­ri­ence. People come to you not only for their favorite bev­er­age, but because they enjoy the ambiance: the inte­rior, the smells, the smil­ing faces that greet them. The entire ensem­ble of the store is inter­twined in their minds, even the most “mun­dane” com­po­nents – every­thing from the irre­sistible aroma of cof­fee to how con­ve­nient, clean, and pre­sentable your condi­ment sta­tion is kept. Creating a pleas­ant cof­fee shop expe­ri­ence is akin to a the­atri­cal per­for­mance: The impor­tant work hap­pens behind the scenes, where the set is thought­fully crafted. How do you want to be remem­bered after your cus­tomer exits your theatre?

This is true for those items that most cus­tomers take for granted – sleeves, mugs, cups, lids and even straws and nap­kins – those neces­si­ties of every cof­fee shop retailer. What prod­ucts you pro­vide your cus­tomers will make as much of an impres­sion as the set­ting. But, there are many con­sid­er­a­tions when you pur­chase these items: Are they cost-effective? Are the cups pleas­ing to the eyes as well as to the hand? Can they retain heat with­out burn­ing hands? Is the lid spill-proof? Do the sleeves have a good grip? From what mate­r­ial are they made to ensure qual­ity? Is the prod­uct eco-friendly? And more.

There are many choices in the mar­ket­place. It is dif­fi­cult to choose items that suit both cus­tomers’ expec­ta­tions and the retailer’s bud­get. Every cus­tomer is dif­fer­ent when it comes to mar­ket­ing to them. A key to find­ing the best prod­ucts is to under­stand your cus­tomer; retail­ers must com­mu­ni­cate with their cus­tomers to see what prod­uct fea­tures are impor­tant to them.

Choosing the right sleeves, cups, lids or mugs
The largest chal­lenge to find­ing the right prod­ucts is choos­ing the right com­bi­na­tion of cups, lids, mugs, and sleeves to accom­mo­date the largest num­ber of peo­ple and pref­er­ences. A retailer is also think­ing about costs—everything from brew­ing to stor­age. But one area that is often less con­sid­ered is the mes­sage they are send­ing when pro­mot­ing their brand on a mug or cup. Retailers need to match the pro­mo­tion of a high-quality brew with a high-quality cup. As Kevin Blaser from JavaJacket says, “Building a rela­tion­ship with a reli­able and knowl­edge­able full ser­vice dis­trib­u­tor plays a key role in that process.”

Stalkmarket/Asean, oper­ated by Buzz Chandler, is an inter­na­tional leader in the devel­op­ment and man­u­fac­ture of com­postable cups, lids, pack­ag­ing, and uten­sils. “The global mar­ket for earth friendly dis­pos­able prod­ucts in the cafes and in food­ser­vice is rapidly expand­ing,” says Buzz. “This is a reflec­tion of the level of con­sumer demand for bet­ter solu­tions to dis­pos­ing of serv­ing items such as cups, lids, and to-go containers.”

Moducup, who dis­trib­utes the iconic Greek cof­fee cup, found through­out New York City, is an exam­ple of a busi­ness that builds strong rela­tion­ships. They are still family-owned and depend on cus­tomer rela­tion­ships. “Because we’re still small enough, we can print a lower quan­tity of cups for smaller shops,” says Moducup’s Dean Kalamaras. “If we can help, we will!”

“After get­ting the basics for their busi­ness, to-go cups and basic C han­dle cups that hold liq­uid, it’s pick­ing the right spe­cialty cups for in-store retail and ser­vice,” adds Mitch Bangert of Offero.

Michelle Kaffko from Snarky Sleeves explains that retail­ers want to choose a sleeve to get cus­tomers talk­ing about the prod­uct and return­ing to their shop to pur­chase. Reusable sleeves are per­fect for that function.

As for cup lids, cus­tomers def­i­nitely real­ize the neces­sity but may not be aware of their options. In his expe­ri­ence, David Pensak from Vaporiety finds that although retail­ers can name where they pur­chase their lids, they usu­ally do not know who made them. Lids are essen­tial to keep the cof­fee from spilling, as well as retain­ing the taste and aroma.

Reusable mugs con­tinue to be pop­u­lar and eco-friendly. Erez Toker from Vessel Drinkware says that his com­pany would like to see more peo­ple using portable mugs, which is a customer-conscious way to stay sus­tain­able. Personal, portable mugs are dis­tinc­tive and peo­ple like to have that per­sonal touch.

Dawn Miracle at Hot Straw says that hot-beverage straws have been some­thing that has been over­looked from both an envi­ron­men­tal and a health aspect for quite some time. A cost advan­tage of their prod­ucts is that they are re-useable. Being dish­washer safe, cus­tomers will not have to pay for a new one each time they want to use a straw.

Quality is incred­i­bly impor­tant to retail­ers. Their prod­ucts are a reflec­tion of their busi­ness and the image they por­tray to cus­tomers. Choosing items that are well made from qual­ity mate­ri­als, and are also avail­able at an afford­able price, is impor­tant. Larger retail­ers tend to look for the best price over qual­ity and smaller shop own­ers tend to look for qual­ity in prod­ucts over the best price. This is due to the fact that own­ers inter­act with cus­tomers on an almost daily basis, whereas larger retail­ers don’t have the con­sis­tent face time.

Melissa Wallum of StyroChem says that foam cups are the best value option on the mar­ket, and their per­for­mance for insu­la­tion and strength can­not be beat.

Simply Lids offers a two-piece lid that costs less than cur­rent two-piece lids on the market.

Consumers have a choice in their pur­chases and they find the cost aligns with the qual­ity they are receiv­ing. Higher end design of sleeves, cups, lids, and mugs that use more eco-friendly mate­ri­als are appear­ing in the bev­er­age indus­try. And to be eco-friendly and sus­tain­able is very important.

Sustainability is a huge trend, and cus­tomers fre­quently look for recy­clable cups, sleeves, and lids, but these sus­tain­able prod­ucts are not always the most cost effec­tive for retail­ers. “The demand for envi­ron­men­tally friendly prod­ucts is def­i­nitely here to stay,” says Michelle Kaffko of Snarky Sleeves. Retailers need to be able to find a happy medium, which can get con­fus­ing with so many size and mate­r­ial options when choos­ing between price and ‘sus­tain­abil­ity’. There is also a push for com­postable food ser­vice prod­ucts, but there is unfor­tu­nately min­i­mal infra­struc­ture across the US for com­post­ing as of yet.

There are many sus­tain­able prod­ucts out there. Here are just a few of those.
•    John Gillespie of GreenGood explains that solid food wastes, as well as dis­pos­ables, are major prob­lems for land­fills around the world. GreenGood’s com­postable and recy­clable prod­ucts help to elim­i­nate waste. At GreenGood all their prod­ucts with the it are made from 100% biodegrad­able mate­ri­als. Their prod­ucts are envi­ron­men­tally friendly, dis­pos­able food­ser­vice products.

•    Simply Lids uses mate­ri­als that are sus­tain­able, recy­clable, reusable, and have anti-microbial and anti-bacterial properties.

•    “Consumers today are care­ful about spend­ing,” explains Thomas Perez of Bodum, “and instead of buy­ing a less expen­sive prod­uct that will need to be replaced repeat­edly, they are look­ing to invest in qual­ity mer­chan­dise.” Bodum’s prod­ucts are reusable, which is a very sus­tain­able way to curb waste.

•    P&P International pro­vides recy­clable plas­tic pack­ag­ing to the fresh-cut pro­duce, food ser­vice, bak­ery and deli industries.

•    Don Scherer of BriteVision says his company’s invest­ment in a man­u­fac­tur­ing plant that recy­cles almost all of its paper waste is a key­stone of their com­mit­ment to an indus­try focused on sup­port of envi­ron­men­tal practices.

•    At ūVu Lids, they use Virgin Polypropylene, a petroleum-based lid that fea­tures some of the low­est car­bon foot­print of all mate­ri­als being used by cof­fee lid man­u­fac­tur­ers. Also, at uVu, their lids are col­ored to com­ple­ment your brand.

•    Sunset Hill’s prod­ucts can last for gen­er­a­tions if used prop­erly. All reusable cof­fee mugs are eco-friendly because they elim­i­nate the need for disposables.

Many sleeves, cups, and mugs can be used as pro­mo­tional mate­r­ial. Companies are able to add logos, scratch & wins, QR codes, pro­mo­tions, coupons or use as col­lec­tor items. Sleeve man­u­fac­tur­ers, such as Java Jacket and BriteVision, can be used to adver­tise, pro­mote, or com­mu­ni­cate on many lev­els. Cups are also vehi­cles for adver­tis­ing. Cup man­u­fac­tur­ers such as Pacific Pulp Molding and StyroChem, and many oth­ers offer cus­tom print­ing, as well as man­u­fac­tur­ers of reusable con­tain­ers from com­pa­nies such as Vessel, Sunset Hill, and others.

Retailers should never under­es­ti­mate the power of their cus­tomers. You will be sur­prised how much of a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence they will have when they know their sleeves, cups, lids, or mugs are sus­tain­able, attrac­tive, acces­si­ble, and depend­able. The more cre­ative you are, the more cus­tomers will appre­ci­ate the whole expe­ri­ence of your shop. Your audi­ence will applaud you—and, more impor­tantly, return for more.

To Build a Mountain of Profits, Focus on the Big Rocks

After work­ing with inde­pen­dent cof­fee house own­ers for more than 20 years, I’ve found that one con­sis­tent, major weak­ness is the lack of focus on mar­ket­ing. Many busi­ness own­ers neglect this vital func­tion because they don’t know where to start, are put off by the per­ceived expense, or are dis­tracted by the thou­sands of small details involved in run­ning a suc­cess­ful enter­prise. Yet mar­ket­ing is one of what I call the “big rocks.” The term comes from a story attrib­uted to time man­age­ment guru Stephen Covey.

It starts with a busi­ness pro­fes­sor who takes out a big glass jar, fills it to the top with fist-sized rocks and asks his stu­dents if the jar is full.  “Yes!” they answer. “Not so fast,” the pro­fes­sor cau­tions. He then takes out a pre­vi­ously hid­den con­tainer of small peb­bles and pours them into the jar, fill­ing the spaces between the big rocks.  He asks again if the jar is full. This time the stu­dents respond, “Probably not.” The pro­fes­sor then pulls out a bucket of sand and dumps it into the jar. The sand sifts into the spaces between the peb­bles. This time when he asks if the jar was full, the stu­dents all say, “No!” Finally, he grabs a pitcher of water and fills the jar to the brim. After the stu­dents agree that the jar finally is full, he asks, “What is the point of this demonstration?”

“That you can always fit more into your life,” says one of the students.

“No,” says the pro­fes­sor. “If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

Marketing is one of the big rocks of run­ning a cof­fee shop. If you don’t put a sound mar­ket­ing pro­gram in place, you may never get to the other items on your “to do” list … because you may not have a shop for long. Fortunately, effec­tive cof­fee shop mar­ket­ing doesn’t require spend­ing a lot of money. A well-focused mar­ket­ing plan that employs sig­nage, grass roots strate­gies, social media, events, and in-store pro­mo­tions can deliver a grow­ing stream of cus­tomers with­out break­ing the bank.

Here are some mar­ket­ing tips that cof­fee house own­ers have used to turn their big rocks into abun­dant profits.

Don’t get stuck on your name. Many cof­fee shop own­ers spent hours fret­ting about the name of their busi­ness, but it’s not a big rock. Just choose a name that quickly com­mu­ni­cates who and what you. Be sure to tack on “Coffee House” or “Coffee Bar” to the title, because peo­ple are not going to stop their cars to find out what your busi­ness is about. And do your research to make sure the name hasn’t been trade­marked by any­one else before you invest in sig­nage or pro­mo­tional materials.

Stake Your Claim. Prominent sig­nage is as impor­tant as the name of the shop. Again, make sure the words “Coffee House,” “Coffee Bar” or “Coffee Shop” are dis­played in very large let­ters. Steer clear of fancy, script fonts.  Potential cus­tomers aren’t going to cir­cle around the block to take a sec­ond look at a sign they can’t read.

Make Your Menu Sell. Lay out your menu in a way that entices cus­tomers to try your most pop­u­lar and prof­itable drinks. As a gen­eral rule, con­sumers read adver­tise­ments from top down and left to right. Put your hot espresso drinks at the top left, iced and blended espresso drinks on the right.

Invest in a Website. Your web­site is your online store­front. Customers can check it 24 hours a day for your busi­ness hours, spe­cials and events.  Web plat­forms such as WordPress make it easy to estab­lish an inex­pen­sive web­site that can be updated regularly.

Grow Your Business with Grass-Roots Marketing. The best form of mar­ket­ing doesn’t take a lot of money. You have a community-based busi­ness, so don’t start with a radio spot or by plac­ing ads in a city-wide paper. People are not going to drive across town for a cup of cof­fee. Instead, hit the pave­ment to meet other busi­ness own­ers and build rela­tion­ships with local schools and com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tion.  As your busi­ness grows, you may become so busy that “hit­ting the pave­ment” loses its pri­or­ity.  Again, focus on the big rocks and it will pay big dividends.

Strike a Partnership with Local Business Owners. Ask local busi­ness own­ers for refer­rals, and then give them and their staff a $1 espresso-based drink. Local restau­rants, retail shops, salons and other busi­nesses in the area are good places to network.

Join the Chamber of Commerce. Become a mem­ber of your local Chamber of Commerce and take advan­tage of the ser­vices they offer, includ­ing net­work­ing ses­sions and annual events. This is a great way to meet your neigh­bors and get involved in the community.

Hold a Grand-Opening Event. Plan a grand open­ing about a week after your soft open­ing. Make some inex­pen­sive signs and fliers invit­ing neigh­bors to come in for great espresso-based drinks for $1. An espresso-based drink costs about $1 to make, so you’re not los­ing money by sell­ing it for $1. Ask area busi­ness neigh­bors if you can post signs or leave fliers with them, and leave fliers at area homes.

Create Weekly Specials and Seasonal Promotions. Encourage your cus­tomers to try some­thing new with posters, counter mats, table tents and other point-of-purchase mate­ri­als fea­tur­ing a pic­ture of a deli­cious drink. These point-of-purchase mate­ri­als also usher in the hol­i­days in a fun and invit­ing way.

Activate Your Customer Base. Building rela­tion­ships with your cus­tomers encour­ages repeat sales and refer­rals – the lifeblood of any small busi­ness. Encourage cus­tomers to bring friends in for a “buy one, get one free” spe­cial.  Gather cus­tomer e-mails and send them reg­u­lar news and specials.

Get Social. Starting a social media pro­gram is another inex­pen­sive way to engage with cus­tomers and prospects. With today’s array of social net­work­ing plat­forms, it’s easy to get over­whelmed, so start out slowly. Open only a Facebook account or only a Twitter account. Once you have mas­tered that account, branch out to oth­ers. Keep these things in mind as you set up your social media pro­gram:
1.    Make a plan. Know what you hope to achieve and how you will mea­sure results.
2.    Be inter­ac­tive. Listen to your cus­tomers, respond to their ques­tions or con­cerns, and ask for their opin­ions. The more engag­ing you are, the more likely peo­ple will be to visit your page, web­site, and ulti­mately, your cof­fee house.
3.    Be con­sis­tent. Social media is a long-term invest­ment; you have to post reg­u­larly to see the payoff.

Celebrate Your Anniversary. Every year, cel­e­brate your busi­ness anniver­sary with a one-day spe­cial, such as $1 drinks.

We have just scratched the sur­face of the mar­ket­ing big rocks in this col­umn. Next time, we will look at the real costs of shoe leather in grass roots mar­ket­ing campaigns.

Greg Ubert, founder and pres­i­dent of Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea, has been roast­ing cof­fee in small batches since 1991 and has taught hun­dreds of busi­ness own­ers how to run suc­cess­ful inde­pen­dent cof­fee houses. The author of Seven Steps to Success in the Specialty Coffee Industry can be reached at greg@crimsoncup.com.

Retailer/Roaster Profile

Today we have the plea­sure to speak with Kevin Brennan, owner of Rockn’ Joe, an awe­some and suc­cess­ful cof­fee chain in New Jersey. Let’s get right to it:

V. Hi Kevin, thanks for being with us here today. Please tell us, “How did it all start for you?”
B. Hi Max! We are actu­ally in our 20^th year of busi­ness now. Before I started this, I used to man­age a big super­mar­ket, and it was a fan­tas­tic retail expe­ri­ence to pre­pare me for this busi­ness. However, at the same time, it was tremen­dously stress­ful and I had to work a lot of hours. I decided I needed to think of doing some­thing on my own, and I had a real pas­sion to be an entre­pre­neur. I was on vaca­tion in San Diego back in 1989 and that is prob­a­bly when the whole West Coast cof­fee scene really started to take off and there were a bunch of cof­fee houses around. There was one par­tic­u­lar cof­fee­house there that I went in every­day and just thought “Wow! How great it would be to have a place like this back on the East Coast.”

To put it into per­spec­tive Starbucks didn’t come to the East Coast until ‘96, so there really weren’t any cof­fee­houses. So I decided ok, it is novel enough, it looks sim­ple enough and cof­fee is some­thing I really do love. Then 1992 came and one morn­ing I’m in the shower and I had that knot in my stom­ach that I always had before going to work, know­ing there was more work than there was time in the day and I decided, “I can­not do this a year from now. I have to change; I have to do some­thing dif­fer­ent.” I went back to the West Coast to do some research, came back here and started look­ing for a loca­tion which I found in the early sum­mer of ‘93 and by the end of that same year we were open for business.

V. Why is your busi­ness called Rockn’ Joe?
B. Well, first of all, I am a huge music fan and ama­teur musi­cian. As the East Coast cof­fee scene was gain­ing momen­tum, I knew that I would have to be unique in order to stand out from every­body else. The music theme here is about giv­ing our busi­ness a per­son­al­ity; it is really more of a back­ground kind of thing sec­ondary to the cof­fee and the cof­fee­house expe­ri­ence. We don’t do any live shows here – we have tried, but it doesn’t really work. There are peo­ple that drink cof­fee and there are peo­ple that go out to lis­ten to live music, and it actu­ally is kind of rare that those are the same kind of peo­ple. Since cof­fee is the eco­nomic dri­ver of the busi­ness, that is who we need to cater to. At the same we have a great mix of music play­ing all the time and the walls are cov­ered with Rock’n Roll mem­o­ra­bilia, so that is kind of fun to look at. And then we really play that whole rock theme into the cof­fee and all of our cof­fee blends have a rela­tion­ship with music; for exam­ple, our espresso is called Black Dog espresso, so it is a lit­tle play on a Led Zeppelin song, and so on.

V. It seems like younger kids are into a dif­fer­ent type of music nowa­days. Does your con­cen­trat­ing on clas­si­cal rock hurt your busi­ness in any way as far as your younger cus­tomers?
B. I still am a huge music fan, so I go to way too many shows and try to stay very cur­rent on the music scene. So the music that we are play­ing is a music that they are lis­ten­ing to, but we are mix­ing it with a lot of clas­sic stuff too. You know what is really funny is that kids nowa­days are really dig­ging into clas­sic rock. A lot of high school kids all of a sud­den are into Jimi, the Doors and the Beatles, for exam­ple. However, our playlist is very up-to-date, so what­ever else they are lis­ten­ing to, we got it.

V. Do you roast your own cof­fee and if not, who is your sup­plier?
B. We have a part­ner­ship with Dillanos in Seattle. I’m so happy with them; they are really an awe­some com­pany! They work with us closely to come up with the blends and the whole approach to us is fantastic.

V. You are cof­fee busi­ness vet­eran. Dare to share your secrets on how to be suc­cess­ful?  
B. Sure, first you start by being really pas­sion­ate about the prod­uct that you sell­ing. It has got to start there. Then sec­ond is some­thing that took me a while to learn – you have to run the busi­ness by the num­bers and not just your pas­sion – main­tain good book­keep­ing, con­trol your labor, and con­trol food costs. The pas­sion has to coex­ist with the log­i­cal side of the busi­ness. Ever since the crash of the econ­omy in 2008, aver­age is over. You really have to be great at what you are doing. You really have to do a good amount of vol­ume in order to make this a worth­while busi­ness and the only way you can do this is to be effi­cient. Keep mov­ing peo­ple in and out fast because a per­son in the morn­ing is not going to wait 5 min­utes for a cup of cof­fee. I still see that in a lot of inde­pen­dent shops where they don’t pay a lot of atten­tion to oper­a­tions. They just can’t get the vol­ume that they need. That is a big thing.

And last, just fol­low the basics of good old school busi­ness prac­tices. Saying hello to your cus­tomers and engag­ing with them on a per­sonal level goes a long way toward mak­ing sure that they are going to come back day after day after day. I focus all my energy on what is going on within the walls of this store. Whenever I hear a busi­ness owner get­ting into a lot of mar­ket­ing and inter­net stuff, I just say “They don’t get it.” Just put these old busi­ness prac­tices to work. They used to work before and they still work now.

Rockn’ Joe Coffeehouse and Bistro

5 Eastman Street, Cranford, New Jersey 07016
(908) 276‑4983
www.rocknjoe.net
franchise@rocknjoe.net

Unlocking Capital: A Double Shot

Think you can’t afford to increase your cor­po­rate phil­an­thropic involve­ment and cause mar­ket­ing?  Maybe you can’t afford not to.  Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is more than just a feel-good trend: it’s a smart busi­ness strat­egy, as well. And these days, there are a vari­ety of tools that can help make your CSR efforts more afford­able and more effec­tive – some­times with­out cost­ing you a cent – allow­ing your sav­ings to fuel your giving.

87% of your cus­tomers want you to give back.
Giving back to the com­mu­nity is not a new con­cept for most com­pa­nies. Altruistic and forward-thinking orga­ni­za­tions have been sup­port­ing com­mu­nity and non-profit causes for over a cen­tury. What is new is the impor­tance of that sup­port to both employ­ees and customers.

Customers want to know you are look­ing at more than prof­its when you run your busi­ness.  In fact, accord­ing to the 2012 Goodpurpose Study by Edelman Inc., 87% of con­sumers expect com­pa­nies to give the inter­ests of soci­ety equal weight to busi­ness con­cerns. And they will put their money behind that belief: 73% of con­sumers are will­ing to switch from one brand to another brand that is about the same in price and qual­ity, if the other brand is asso­ci­ated with a good cause.  Furthermore, 71% are will­ing to pro­mote a brand asso­ci­ated with a cause they sup­port, and 72% will rec­om­mend that brand to others.

It’s not just your cus­tomers who want you to do good: your employ­ees are look­ing for a socially respon­si­ble work­place.  According to a 2010 study by the Kenexa Research Institute, employ­ees who see their com­pany invest­ing in a suc­cess­ful CSR cam­paign are more than three times more likely to pos­i­tively rate their pride in the orga­ni­za­tion, will­ing­ness to rec­om­mend it as a place to work, and over­all sat­is­fac­tion. Since it is these inside stake­hold­ers who can truly cre­ate a com­pany that flour­ishes, a suc­cess­ful CSR cam­paign will pay for itself in terms of increased pro­duc­tiv­ity, reten­tion, and a pos­i­tive cor­po­rate culture.

CSR can help you out­per­form com­peti­tors.
There is proof that a suc­cess­fully run CSR cam­paign trans­lates to your bot­tom line. The Good Company Index (http://www.goodcompanyindex.com/) ranks the Fortune 100 com­pa­nies based on each one’s actions with respect to their employ­ers, cus­tomers, and as a stew­ard of the com­mu­nity and envi­ron­ment. They each are assigned a Good Company grade, from A to F. “In the 24 months after the index was cre­ated, com­pa­nies that earned a full let­ter grade or higher than their indus­try peers on the index – in other words, those that behaved bet­ter – out­per­formed those com­peti­tors by an aver­age of 30 per­cent­age points.”  A 30% advan­tage for doing some­thing that makes every­one feel good is a pretty com­pelling rea­son to make sure your CSR pro­gram is the best it can be.

Why cause mar­ket­ing mat­ters.
Championing a cause is just part of the equa­tion. It’s equally impor­tant to edu­cate your cur­rent and poten­tial cus­tomers about your efforts in a clear way.  According to the 2011 Cone/Echo Global CR Study,  93% per­cent of con­sumers want to know how com­pa­nies are work­ing to improve the world, but 71% say they are con­fused by the mes­sage com­pa­nies use to con­vey their efforts.

Your com­pany may already be run­ning a CSR pro­gram through local part­ner­ships, giv­ing cam­paigns or employee ser­vice pro­grams, but unless you are adver­tis­ing that sup­port in an eas­ily under­stand­able way, con­sumers may not know about it. When you use your mar­ket­ing dol­lars to high­light your patron­age of a cause, you aren’t just toot­ing your own horn.  You are also rais­ing aware­ness of the cause itself, which is another sig­nif­i­cant way to sup­port it.

Finding Savings to Fuel Giving
Of course, all this takes cap­i­tal, which is pre­cious even when the econ­omy is boom­ing.  Luckily, there are experts out there who can help you find places to save even where you thought you were run­ning as lean as pos­si­ble.  An audit of your ship­ping costs may uncover a way to nego­ti­ate bet­ter rates with your car­ri­ers, or a review of insur­ance costs may point to a more afford­able solu­tion for your busi­ness.  By hir­ing an out­side con­sul­tant to look for hid­den cap­i­tal, you can free up money to spend on CSR and cause mar­ket­ing.  Most of these con­sul­tants work on a con­tin­gency basis, tak­ing their fees only from sav­ings they find for you.  In other words, there’s no down side for your company.

Tracking CSR effec­tive­ness
You can also save money by invest­ing in new soft­ware tools which allow your employ­ees to eas­ily mea­sure your CSR program’s impact, trans­lat­ing raw data into pow­er­ful sto­ries. Are you like most com­pa­nies, track­ing your pro­gram and report­ing goals using Excel, Access and e-mail? While these were cut­ting edge tech­nol­ogy not long ago, they are now anti­quated, cum­ber­some and time-consuming tools com­pared to what is avail­able in 2013. New cloud-based tech­nolo­gies that allow ubiq­ui­tous access and pow­er­ful data orga­niz­ing capa­bil­i­ties are rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing all areas of com­pany oper­a­tions. Just as busi­ness man­age­ment solu­tions for man­u­fac­tur­ing or sales have rev­o­lu­tion­ized the way you make deci­sions, CSR pro­grams ben­e­fit greatly from these effi­cien­cies. Not only will you have clear met­rics to gage your CSR efforts, you free your employ­ees from the work of col­lect­ing the data from mul­ti­ple spread­sheets and emails. Instead of crunch­ing the num­bers and fig­ur­ing out what they mean and how to com­mu­ni­cate the impact of your CSR efforts, employ­ees can be set­ting new goals and work­ing towards them.

No excuses
So if it’s going to win you cus­tomers, ener­gize your employ­ees, and improve your bot­tom line, why isn’t your CSR pro­gram in high gear?  If your answer has always been that you don’t have the money, that’s no longer good enough.  An effec­tive, effi­cient CSR pro­gram will increase your bot­tom line, and the tools to make it suc­ceed will pro­vide the sav­ings to accel­er­ate your giving.

Gina Manis-Anderson, owner of Savii Group, uses her cost sav­ings exper­tise to help com­pa­nies free up cap­i­tal to fund the pro­grams that really mat­ter.  Learn more at www.saviigroup.com.

Lisa Lindgren, co-founder of CoffeeCares, helps com­pa­nies, large and small, opti­mize the ben­e­fits of their CSR pro­gram by pro­vid­ing a sim­ple soft­ware tool for char­i­ta­ble giv­ing and report­ing. Contact her at lisa@tracktheimpact.com.

Warming Up to a Frozen Beverage Program

It is now a given to say that in today’s econ­omy, times are tough. Coffeeshop and café own­ers are expe­ri­enc­ing a freeze in rev­enue because of slow busi­ness. Therefore, they must find cre­ative ways to not just make more money—they need to some­times break even. But, what retailer doesn’t want to boost their rev­enue? They are always look­ing for ways to increase sales. Why not give them a boost by apply­ing a frozen bev­er­age pro­gram? When we talk about frozen bev­er­ages, of course, we are refer­ring to smooth­ies, iced cof­fee, shakes, frappes, lemon­ades or cre­ative con­coc­tions designed by own­ers. “Frozen bev­er­ages have clearly moved from being a niche or spe­cialty offer­ing to a main­stream con­sumer expec­ta­tion,” notes Russ Arnold of Blendtec. They are not only pop­u­lar, but as Desiree Mimlitsch from Cappuccine says, “frozen drinks gen­er­ally offer the high­est dol­lar profit of any bev­er­age exclud­ing alco­hol.” Also, she says, “frozen drinks are pop­u­lar dur­ing slow after­noons.” And Michael Rice of Follett says that frozen bev­er­age pro­grams offer retail­ers another avenue for rev­enue growth.

Competition is fierce these days. Independent cof­fee houses and cafes are con­tin­u­ously con­tend­ing for cus­tomers’ atten­tion. So, if you like to shake things up and stay com­pet­i­tive, intro­duc­ing a vari­ety of frozen bev­er­ages can be a great way to do it. Big Train’s Frank Lindsay agrees that all retail cof­fee house out­lets would greatly ben­e­fit by offer­ing frozen drinks. But on the flip­side, he cau­tions, “they risk los­ing core cus­tomers to com­pet­ing cof­fee houses, juice bars, and other food­ser­vice out­lets.” Don’t let that dis­cour­age you from adding them on the menu, though. One thing to con­sider is loca­tion. Paul Maxwell from Beyond the Bean says that “depend­ing on your loca­tion, frozen drinks can be a year-round menu listing.”

One way to lure health-conscious cus­tomers to frozen bev­er­ages is to adver­tise the health ben­e­fits of frozen beverages–many cus­tomers think of them being a healthy alter­na­tive. Mont Blanc’s Michael Szyliowicz says they are health­ful treats dur­ing the warmer, spring and sum­mer months and that cap­i­tal­iz­ing on their healthy ben­e­fits can be a plus for retail­ers. Another way to do this is through sup­ple­ments known as “boosts”, which are pack­ets filled with nutrient-rich pow­der that can be added to a frozen bev­er­age. Ellie Gross, Vice President at Juice Bar Solution, says that “frozen and iced bev­er­ages are eas­ily con­verted to healthy drinks with the addi­tion of supplement-boosts.” Another way to empha­size healthy frozen drinks is to elim­i­nate sweet­en­ers, syrups and cream­ers. The folks at Weldon Flavoring devel­oped liq­uid fla­vor­ings that are pure sugar-free, con­tain­ing no sweet­en­ers or syrups, calo­ries, carbs, fats, sodium, creamer or caf­feine. A cof­fee alter­na­tive is chai, a blend of black tea and Indian herbs and spices. Tipu Chai‘s Chai Now is a com­plete instant prod­uct that uses an organic, non-GMO soy milk pow­der, sweet­ened with organic cane juice for a healthy, vegan product.

What about the ingre­di­ents? There is a broad range—everything from from fresh fruit and veg­eta­bles, to frozen fruit and veg­eta­bles to prepack­aged smoothie mixes. What you choose for ingre­di­ents depends much on your oper­a­tions plan, cus­tomer expec­ta­tions, and other fac­tors. Flavor is proven to be most impor­tant to a bev­er­age con­sumer, empha­sizes Lani Peterson of Foodservice. Operators should pay atten­tion to fla­vor above every­thing else. Smoothies are always an easy bev­er­age alter­na­tive. Because of their nutri­tional value and ease of mak­ing, they are a very pop­u­lar drink around the world. Attention to the qual­ity of ice is also very impor­tant, as it is a sta­ple ingre­di­ent in any frozen bev­er­age. The fresher the ingre­di­ents, the bet­ter tast­ing the beverage.

Steps to Smooth Success
The biggest chal­lenge is not know­ing exactly where to start. There will def­i­nitely be start-up costs, over­head costs and pos­si­ble per­mits, licens­ing or fran­chise fees. Writing a busi­ness plan is highly encour­aged, as it will give you an out­line of what to expect. Estimating costs and con­sult­ing a frozen bev­er­age firm is highly rec­om­mended. Nadine VanDeventer, of Treehouse Brands, says, “Start up costs, which are min­i­mal, include a blender ($500 – $1,000) and cups/lids to offer your drinks.“

Training employ­ees is also an impor­tant part of the process once a frozen bev­er­age pro­gram has been imple­mented. Andrew Dun of Insight Beverages advices retail­ers to incor­po­rate a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­gram “to ensure that employ­ees know how to prop­erly main­tain, fill and clean the dis­pens­ing equipment.”

Additionally, a com­pre­hen­sive mar­ket­ing pro­gram is required to build con­sumer aware­ness and trial of frozen bev­er­ages. It is espe­cially impor­tant that retail­ers mar­ket frozen bev­er­ages out­side of their stores to attract new consumers.

Here are a few addi­tional tips from lead­ers in the bev­er­age indus­try:
•     Michael Szyliowicz of Mont Blanc: Sampling dur­ing busy times will increase orders and encour­age your employ­ees to pro­mote the pro­gram with every order.
•     Frank Lindsey from Big Train: Maintain con­sis­tency: loyal, repeat cus­tomers are com­forted by the fact that they will get the same great tast­ing drink made the same way, each and every time they visit their favorite out­let.
•     Paul Maxwell from Beyond the Bean: Use POS to high­light the range that you are offer­ing to tempt and entice cus­tomers to con­sider a frozen drink from your busi­ness and not from the inter­na­tional chain down the road.
•     Steve Christensen from Stoelting: Great cus­tomer ser­vice, great qual­ity of food and bev­er­age, and an inter­est­ing and unique store envi­ron­ment in a great loca­tion.
•     Gina Costello from Costellini’s: We sug­gest always sam­ple your reg­u­lars for their input. Of course we sup­ply the free prod­uct for sampling.

Beverage com­pany lead­ers also pro­vide tools that can con­tribute to retail­ers’ smooth suc­cess.  For instance,  Add a Scoop offers a free POS flip chart which includes ingre­di­ents and nutri­tional infor­ma­tion for all 19 of our prod­ucts. Foodservice pro­vides POS, recipes, online train­ing videos and equip­ment rebates. As far as mixes, Cappuccine offers a wide vari­ety of frappé mixes that can either be used as stand-alone fla­vors or bases to make your own sig­na­ture drinks. For busi­nesses look­ing for a more cus­tomized pro­gram, PreGel America sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives and chefs work closely together to design prod­ucts and/or recipes suited to the par­tic­u­lar client’s needs. Treehouse Brands has train­ing mate­ri­als for prod­uct make up, posters, tubs, lids and scoops. At Stoelting, monthly classes are held for end-users to learn prac­ti­cal meth­ods of mak­ing and pro­mot­ing menu items includ­ing frozen beverage.

Blenders and ice machines
If you decide to offer frozen bev­er­ages the choice of which equip­ment to use in order to make or dis­pense your prod­uct can be daunt­ing. There are so many choices! Ellie Gross of Juice Solutions believes that the right equip­ment makes a huge dif­fer­ence.  Many retail­ers don’t real­ize how many options there are beyond just a coun­ter­top blender. For exam­ple, Blendtec has a full range of blender-dispensers that offer vary­ing degrees of automa­tion. Equipment like this can pro­vide great effi­ciency and allow mul­ti­task­ing, which is key for smaller crews or busy estab­lish­ments. Key aspects of smoothie blend­ing equip­ment include power and dura­bil­ity: You need enough blend­ing power to demol­ish ice, frozen fruit and any other ingre­di­ents, as well as to cre­ate a smooth tex­ture. And you need a blender that can han­dle dozens of blends per hour with­out over­heat­ing or break­ing down.

Ice machines are of equal impor­tance. Qualty ice results in qual­ity frozen bev­er­ages. Being a sup­plier of ice machines, Follett can con­tribute to those retail­ers that offer blended drinks, such as smooth­ies or frozen lattes, as part of a frozen bev­er­age pro­gram. They spe­cial­ize in ice machines that pro­duce Chewblet ice, a form of nugget ice that is softer than the typ­i­cal hard cube-type. Additionally, Manitowoc is unveil­ing their new ice machine,  NEO™, an all-in-one, under­counter ice mak­ing and stor­age solu­tion, that offers up to 33 lbs more of ice pro­duc­tion within the same foot­print of their exist­ing models.

As we see, when imple­ment­ing a frozen bev­er­ages pro­gram, there is much to con­sider. But, it can be  reward­ing. It is a great way for retail­ers to diver­sify their prod­uct offer­ings and pro­vide a very hot trend in the indus­try. There are numer­ous resources for find­ing the right pro­gram for your business.

We were not able to include all frozen bev­er­age mix and equip­ment ven­dors in this arti­cle, for a com­plete list­ing please go to yellowpages.coffeetalk.com.