Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/28793
Artisan. Sustainable. Organic. Fair Trade Certified. Those buzz words —so prevalent throughout the foodservice and retail market segments— are driving coffee roasting trends, as consumers demand to know where the food and drinks they consume are from. This month, Specialty Coffee Retailer takes you behind the scenes at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), Inc. in Waterbury, Vermont; Dillanos Coffee Roasters in Summer, Wash.; DeCoty Coffee Company in San Angelo, Texas; and The Evelyn Bay Coffee Company, LTD in Brooklyn, Mich. While their locations and business models differ, the things that make them perk are things they share: a passion for java, the daring to expand their brands, and dedicated support for their retail clients. GREEN MOUNTAIN COFFEE ROASTERS, INC. To tell the story of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., you have to decide which GMCR to talk about. Is it the small retail coffee shop in Waitsfield, Vt., where the company was founded in 1981? Te company that adopted social activism before it was fashionable? Te firm that launched its first IPO in 1993? Te enterprise that gave more than $6.9 million to charitable causes in fiscal 2010 when net sales reached $1.36 billion? Or the business associated with brands including Green Mountain Coffee, Tully’s Coffee, Timothy’s World Coffee, Diedrich Coffee, Coffee People, Bigelow, Caribou Coffee, Celestial Seasonings, Emeril’s, Gloria Jean’s, Kahlua, Newman’s Own Organics, and Twinings via its Specialty Coffee Business Unit, and with Van Houtte, Brûlerie St. Denis, Les Cafés Orient Express Coffee, and Brûlerie Mont Royal in Canada? GMCR is all of these and more. Its overarching theme over the past three decades has been its ability to reinvent itself to adjust to changing conditions, while seizing opportunities for responsible growth. In fiscal 2010, GMCR roasted over 70 million pounds of coffee, according to Scott McCreary, president of the Specialty Coffee Business Unit who joined the company 6 years ago. Estimates for 2011 exceed 100 million pounds—numbers founder Bob Stiller could hardly have imagined when he opened his modest retail coffee shop in the early 1980s. Te business was special because of the coffee’s quality and the owner’s desire to share it with more people than could ever walk through his doors. Lacking financial resources, Stiller sought other outlets through which GMCR could sell wholesale. Supermarkets, where every inch of shelf space is more precious than Park Avenue real estate, were reluctant to take on the new coffee brand. Restaurants, convenience stores and rival independent coffeehouses proved more fertile ground. In 1986, King’s became GMCR’s first supermarket chain customer; other grocers soon joined the party. In 1992, GMCR broke ground on a 10,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Waterbury, and added another 25,000 square feet in 1994. An 87,000-square-foot facility opened in Essex, Vermont in 2007, followed by the debut of a 334,000-square-foot operation in Knox County, Tenn. in 2009. In the plants, GMCR relies mainly on Scolari and Probat roasting equipment. Total staff numbered about 2,300 at the end of fiscal 2010, and leapt to more than 4,200 with the Van Houtte acquisition in December 2010. April 2011 • www.specialty-coffee.com | 13