CSP Magazine published a summary of their annual Convenience Retailing University session, this year held in San Antonio, Texas on February 12-13. I am honored to see my session “C-Store Coffee Success” get coverage in the wrap-up beside Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer and Stephen Covey, motivational speaker and co-founder of FranklinCovey. Pretty cool.
Once you accept coffee as a prepared food rather than a powdered drink mix, you can begin unleashing the beverage’s full potential. That’s the message from Andrew Hetzel, founder of Cafemakers LLC, a retail specialty-coffee consultancy based in Kamuela, Hawaii, at the session “C-Store Specialty coffee Success.”
I’m waiting for the day when you can get great coffee at a convenience store!!
I had a chance to talk with some of the major operators this weekend at the specialty coffee association show in Minneapolis; I was impressed by what some of these chains are doing. In pockets around the country, there are some operators with full espresso bars installed. One large operator in Canada said that when they instituted a policy allowing acceptable waste (i.e. dumping old coffee) that sales rose a few THOUSAND percent. The additional cost of those ingredients was negligible, but the improved freshness (and availability in many cases — operators were afraid to brew at the end of the day) dramatically improved profitability. I’m bullish on the future of convenience store coffee.