Читать книгу Wake Up and Sell the Coffee! - Martyn Dawes - Страница 24

Everything fell into place in my mind very quickly. I had been trying to build this new concept with a grocery brand of coffee because the machines were low cost. But the growth of coffee was all in roast and ground. I’d been backing the wrong horse.

Within days I had shared my insight with my accountants and my bank manager. The latter was sceptical – I think he’d heard it all before, but did sign off my facility for another three months.

There was no time to lose. I approached several espresso machine companies in the UK and found a small Swiss-built machine that appeared robust, did a good job of steaming and foaming fresh milk, and was easy to clean. This was a different game altogether though; it was a £4000 piece of kit.

I realised that the coffee itself had to be the focal point. We needed to create an in-store destination. We worked with a product and brand design company to create a concession unit that would house the espresso machine (and a small hot chocolate dispenser). The Nescafé name was gone and the Coffee Nation logo sat proudly at the top, beneath which it said “Fresh ground Coffee”. I decided that a price rise of 10p, to 69p, was in order.

I approached one of the UK’s largest coffee roasters to work with me on the product. I chose a 100% Arabica blend of beans from Brazil, Nicaragua and Kenya that would give a great espresso but also work well with milk for cappuccinos. We’d now be able to talk about where our product came from – it wasn’t just somebody else’s grocery brand anymore.

For both the espresso machine and coffee bean supply I couldn’t offer any guarantee of volumes or business growth. The truth was I couldn’t even pay them. The machine distributor agreed to lend me four machines and the roaster – as they were quite entrepreneurial – said they were happy to develop the blend up front without any minimum volume commitment. They could genuinely see that there might just be something in this and I was brimming with energy and wanted to move fast.

It’s often down to the persuasiveness of the entrepreneur in the early days and I was true to my word. Ten years later we were still buying our coffee from the same company. They continued to give us great service and pricing, and worked with us on product development. We went from my first order of 12kg of beans in 1998 to hundreds of tons a year a decade later.

The concession prototype came together and I had Coffee Nation branded cups produced. Now I had the makings of a brand, all because I had got the product right.