Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/139019
ANOTHER MONTH, ANOTHER DISCOVERY continued from page 33 Riley pitched their business to the panel on "Shark Tank," an ABC reality show in which individuals from startups try to earn investment dollars from a group of high-profile venture capitalists. The MistoBox duo scored a $75,000 deal with Mark Cuban, but more importantly, they got their brand in front of a major TV audience. "We saw a lot of growth in the number of people that normally wouldn't have access to specialty coffee," says Meis. "And going in, that's what our main goal has been. … We're trying to make coffee a lot less intimidating and still deliver an incredible experience." whatever it's feeling most excited about. A more working man's take on that idea is Regular Coffee, a brand that was developed last fall by the owners of Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Rowster New American Coffee. Rowster relies on a traditional retail shop and wholesale accounts for distribution, but the owners identified a market of consumers who seemed to want beans above supermarket quality but weren't interested in all the details and fuss that top cafés are known to bring to the coffee process. "The whole point of the brand is we're not trying to jam all this information in your face," says Foster. The company's coffee is delivered to subscribers in 1.5-pound tubes that feature no tasting notes or origin details. Each tube costs $20. "We aim at that market between Starbucks and Stumptown," Foster says. The all-subscription format fits with the brand's nononsense approach. A WORLD OF COFFEE AWAITS REACHING THE MASSES: The founders of MistoBox on ABC's "Shark Tank" A large part of the success of these subscription-based companies is their ability to feed the growing element of curiosity among today's specialty coffee consumers. Horn of Craft Coffee says the idea for his company came from his own behavior—he was formerly a lawyer who geeked out on coffee in his spare time and spent hundreds of dollars ordering beans from small roasters across the country that intrigued his palate. "Our box is about the experience, the journey," he says. "The discovery element is really important to our customers." An even newer roaster curator brand is Brew Pony, a Portlandbased company that each month chooses one small, qualityfocused roaster in the Oregon coffee hub and sends between 24 ounces and 72 ounces of that roaster's beans out to subscribers (the amount sent depends on which program the customer has signed up for). Brew Pony started only in February, but company founder Jonathon Leto says the business is already turning a profit and is "growing rapidly." The roasting-company side of the market has been led by Los Angeles-based Tonx, which was started in 2011 by Tony Konecny, a former employee of both Intelligentsia and Victrola Coffee. His company offers three subscription sizes—six ounces, 12 ounces and 24 IN THE TUBE: Regular Coffee is built on a simple process and straightforward descriptors. ounces—and in each case the customer gets a shipment every two weeks. The company's It's also notable that people outside the coffee industry have roasts have been lauded in The New York Times and on plenty created many of the businesses in this space. They are thus able of blogs, and subscribers don't choose any particular origin or to bring user experience and technology perspectives into the blend—they instead put faith in the Tonx team to send out equation that a coffee-centric professional might not be able to 34 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com