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/46786
The Gaviña family has been in the roasting business for four generations. business. In fact, since the onset of the recession, the bagged line does better, because more people are drinking coffee at home, Gaviña-Valls said. Francisco Gaviña passed the business to his children and watched it grow until he passed away in 1996 at the age of 93. The family stayed in that location until 2002, when they relocated to their big facility in City of Industry. The Gaviñas saw a lot change in the coffee world during the last 50 years. The demand for specialty coffee was meager by today's standards, so their business stayed small. "If you look at all the specialty coffee roasters, they weren't very prevalent before the 1990s," she said. "We've grown with the industry." The business became what it is today when Starbucks expanded through the nation, creating a bigger demand – and appreciation – for high-quality coffee, Gaviña-Valls says. IN THE FAMILY As the business grew, so did the family, the Gaviñas like to believe. They do their best to make their employees feel like one of their own by providing perks. The warehouse includes classrooms where they offer English-language classes twice a week. They use the money from recycling cans to buy new things for the workers, such as the two plasma-screen televisions in the lounge and a big Thanksgiving bonus. They also have an employee of the year award based on a survey among employees and managers. The prizes are college money for the winner or the winner's children, or a trip to Costa Rica. That program seems to keep morale up, Gaviña-Valls says: "It's wonderful. You can see how proud they are of doing their jobs well." Five Probat roasters handle the bulk of the beans at Gaviña. CONTROLLING THE GIANT Running such a big business offers big challenges. Keeping track of 35 million pounds of product is tricky, so managers use Oracle Product Hub to make sure it's all accounted for, and none of it goes stale. To make sure all the employees' hours are accounted for, they use Timerack US80. With this system, employees use their fingerprint to clock in instead of a time card. This makes sure employees can't clock in for each other. They need big, heavy-duty roasters to make that much product, and they're happy with their five Probats, which roast 200 to 700 pounds. They keep them running four days a week, all day—oſten until 1 a.m.—and they hold up well. Each roaster is set up with an Agtron Spectrophotomer to check the color. THE FUTURE FOR GAVIÑA Out of the Gaviña siblings' 10 children, five work for the company in City of Industry. Lilly Gaviña-Slascott works in HR, Peter Gaviña is a plant manager, Michael Gaviña is a purchasing manager, Anna Valls works in customer service and Yanelle Gaviña started working as an apprentice. If things keep going the way they have been since Francisco immigrated, the Gaviña family will be working in the roasting plant for many more generations, Gaviña-Valls says. "When we moved here," she said as she strolled through the warehouse, "we said, 'The next move will be in the next generation.'" SCR November 2011 • www.specialty-coffee.com | 31