10
Weigh in: Share your advice for the Fire Roasted Coffee Company here.
THE FIRE ROASTED COFFEE COMPANY
Business Summary
Entrepreneur: Founder/owner David Cook, 37, has an extensive business background in management and marketing, after a seven year career with Sobeys Inc. Most recently, he was merchandising manager, responsible for 25 to 30 Sobeys and IGA grocery stores in Ontario, providing advice and coaching on how to improve sales and profitability
Videos
Passionate about coffee, David Cook started roasting beans in a frying pan at home
Growing with family, friends and angel investors, and avoiding potentially awkward situations
Marketing and delivering on promises
Inexpensive and effective marketing ideas with an emphasis on ensuring smooth operations underneath it all
Internet Links
Passionate about coffee, he started roasting beans in a frying pan at home. He first sold coffee at his street's garage sale and was amazed that people paid $10 a pound for it. Realizing there was a demand for his product, he opened a booth at the local farmers' market. After juggling the Sobeys job and the coffee business for a year, he quit Sobeys in May, 2007 to work full-time on growing Fire Roasted Coffee. Cook says his role is to lead production, sales and drive new business. Sales have quadrupled in one year since he went full-time.
Education: Cook went to Georgian College for business and trained as a chef at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (S.A.I.T.).
The Company: Fire Roasted Coffee is a Canadian company that wholesales and retails organic and fair trade coffee, offering over 60 different types of coffee from 40 different countries. As a certified fair trade company, Cook pays a standard price to coffee producers who provide good working conditions to employees and produce coffee in a sustainable manner. This means he pays roughly $1 more per pound, in contrast to the more conventional price, which varies according to the type of beans.
Cook says his company is seen as the independent alternative to the big companies like Starbucks and Tim Horton's. Since his company was invited into the University of Western Ontario, he hasn't had to bid against the big guns, but he replaced Nestles as a supplier for Western's facilities and Tim Horton's in the café run by Western's Hospitality School. He also just closed a deal with Fanshawe College where his coffee will replace Starbuck's coffee.
Founded: 2006. The company is not incorporated at this point although Cook plans to incorporate soon.
Home base: Fire Roasted Coffee has one location, called the Art Roastery Studio, in an industrial park in London, Ontario. He rents 12,000 square feet for $1,000 a month and estimates he'll need twice as much space next year.
The products: Hand roasted organic and fair trade coffee beans from around the world. The company roasts to order — 'just-in-time inventory' — so the product the customer gets has been roasted within the last 24 hours. Retail prices range from $13 a pound up to $30 for beans from the Gallipolis Islands or Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica. Wholesale prices for cafes range from $9 a pound to $24 for the more exotic beans. Retailers make about a 30% mark up on beans; much more on selling brewed coffee.
Staffing: Fire Roasted Coffee has two full-time roasters who also help with website orders and studio sales plus part-time help on weekends to sell at the farmers' markets — a total of five employees. Cook handles "everything to do with the business", including all of the accounting, business development as well as orders and sales. He uses a courier service to deliver most of the orders, but still delivers key accounts himself.
Distribution: Mainly in and around London including Waterloo, Windsor and through a few contacts in Toronto. Fire Roasted Coffee roasts 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of coffee a month. About 5% is distributed through his website, 5% through his studio, and 45% through the company's numerous retail channels and 45% through direct sales at three farmers markets. The wholesale trade is growing the fastest.
Wholesale: Specialty retailers, grocery stores, cafes, catering companies and recently, the University of Western Ontario facilities and convocation events and Fanshawe College. Cook will also supply coffee to Western residence cafeterias in the fall and has started discussions about supplying Fanshawe College and Sobey's urban stores as well. Product volume has been driven mainly by the upscale cafes and retailers.
Retail: The company operates booths at three farmers' markets: London Farmers Market, Pinery Antique Flea Market in Grand Bend and Trail's End in London, averaging 1,000 cups of coffee a weekend. They also sell to customers at their Art Roastery Studio location and online from the company's website.
Sourcing: Cook gets his beans from two or three key wholesalers in Canada and also sources directly with the producing countries. Cook says he hopes to partner with other roasters to get volume to the point where they could start shipping containers of coffee directly. Advice on the best routes to take in establishing direct trade with producing countries would also be welcome.
