Coffee Roaster Business Plan

Beanisimo Coffee has decided to concentrate on three distinct customer segments. The first is coffee houses/drive thru/espresso carts, restaurants, and the last is grocery stores. Each of the customers is distinct. The first segment prepares beverages for their clients, as does the second group along with meals, and the third segment sells the whole bean and ground coffee unprepared to their customers.

While the coffee industry as a whole has been stagnate for a while, the high-end gourmet coffee market is still growing. This can be attributed to a number of factors including the maturing and increased sophistication of the American palette. Beanisimo Coffee faces competition from several competitors who focus on convenience or price as opposed to product quality which is the strength of Beanisimo Coffee.

4.1 Market Segmentation

Beanisimo Coffee has segmented their market into three distinct customer segments:

1. Coffee houses/drive thrus/carts: These customers are purchasing coffee beans for the preparation and sale of coffee and espresso based drinks. Their establishments serve a wide variety of coffee and espresso beverages to customers that visit the coffee houses, drive thrus, or cart based servers.
2. Restaurants: These establishments are purchasing coffee and espresso to serve to their retail food customers.
3. Grocery Stores: These customers are purchasing the beans for either prepackaged, or bulk, resale to their customers. The grocers do not prepare the drinks for the customers like the other customer segments, they only sell the Beanisimo product as is purchased from Beanisimo Coffee.

Below is some demographic information of the end consumers of the above customer segments.

U.S. Demographic Coffee Consumption Patterns
2001- 2002 U.S. Coffee Drinking Trends Survey (according to the National Coffee Association):

Gender:

• Men and women consume the same number of cups per day.
• Women are more excited about varieties and source of relaxation (social).
• Men like that coffee helps them “get things done.”
• Women are more price conscious than men.

Age:

• 18-25: prefer high caffeine, hot or iced drinks, all high octane, richer blends.
• 30-60: prefer premium and espresso with half the caffeine. Lite blends and half-caffeinated grew approximately 7% in 2001.

Other:

• 64% of all coffee is consumed at breakfast; 28% between meals; 8% at all other meals.
• Sweetened or plain: 35% drink coffee black; 65% add sweetener and/or creamer.
• The average daily coffee drinker consumes 3.1 cups per day.
• In 2002, there were 29 million people who drank gourmet coffee every day. Gourmet is defined as specialty coffee (premium), espresso-based beverages (cappuccino, latte, café mocha, espresso), or frozen and iced coffee beverages.

4.2 Target Market Segment Strategy

Beanisimo Coffee will be focusing on the three previously mentioned customer segments because of their desire of having a high-quality product.

The coffee shops/drive thrus/carts segment often appreciates the finest quality coffee/espresso product. Restaurants are another customer segment that is attractive because they have a constant need for coffee and coffee/espresso is a common beverage served with meals, especially when people eat out.

Additionally, restaurants are a year round business that serves coffee at all times during the day. Lastly, Beanisimo Coffee will target grocery stores which sell coffee in unprepared forms to a wide range of customers. Grocery stores are a natural customer since many people buy the bulk of the food they consume during the week from a grocery store, including coffee.

4.3 Industry Analysis

Global Coffee Market: Coffee is the second-largest commodity traded after oil, with the worldwide retail coffee market being a $56 billion industry.

The coffee belt is roughly bounded by the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and is mainly comprised of 28 countries. The top-ten coffee-producing countries are, in descending order: Brazil, Vietnam, Columbia, Indonesia, Mexico, Ethiopia, India, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, and Uganda.

During the 1990’s, Vietnam moved from fourth largest to second largest producer of coffee in the world, with most of its production in robusta beans. Coffee is available in several forms: bean, ground, liquid, and soluble: powdered, granules, freeze-dried. Worldwide, with the exception of North America, people prefer instant coffee and coffee is mainly prepared at home.

Top coffee-importing countries as a % of world supplies:

Top coffee-consuming regions (by pounds consumed per capita per year):

* Does not include the UK, which only consumes 5 pounds per capita per year.

U.S. Coffee Market: The total U.S. coffee market is projected to exceed $25 billion in 2002:

The overall U.S. consumption of coffee has stagnated in recent years. However, consumers’ purchase of gourmet coffee (specialty and premium) is increasing, according to the National Coffee Association.

Consumers are choosing to drink higher-grade coffees, moving away from price-based purchasing to trends that focus on increased quality in a wide variety of products. In the U.S., the coffee market has been segmented into two major categories: mass-market and specialty coffees.

1. Mass-Market: Mainly lower-priced product sold through grocery retail outlets and convenience stores. Mass-market coffee consumption is declining approximately 5% per year as people of all ages embrace out-of-home specialty coffees. Grocery retail outlets are providing the consumer with more premium coffee choices and are partnering with specialty coffee roasters capturing an increasing share of the mass-market sales channels.
2. Specialty Coffee: Characterized by a quality grade product with branding, historically sold only through coffee shops. Five years ago, there was a clear line between mass-market and specialty coffees in quality, price and distribution channels. Today, there are two sub-categories that make the positioning more blurred: Premium and Specialty coffees.

   Specialty coffee retailers sell higher quality coffee at premium prices. Now, premium coffees have been introduced into other distribution channels to sell below specialty coffee retailer prices, undercutting the exclusive advantage coffee retailers once had. Specialty coffee sales grew 38% from $7.76 billion in 2000 to $10.71 billion in 2001, comprising 30% of the total U.S. coffee market. The specialty coffee market is characterized by being high fragmented with one large player, several mid-tier companies, and thousands of small regional companies.

Before the success of the specialty coffee retailers in the 90’s, coffee was a breakfast drink and choices were caffeinated or decaffeinated. The incredible success of the specialty coffee retailer can be attributed to introducing coffee as a social drink and providing the consumer with new unimagined choices of coffee drinks while introducing and conditioning the consumer to the taste of specialty coffees.

Trends within the Industry:

• In the U.S., Specialty coffee sales grew 38% from $7.76 billion in 2000 to $10.71 billion in 2001, comprising 30% of the market. Thanks in large part to the marketing efforts of Starbucks, specialty coffee has become mainstream. It is the primary growth driver in the otherwise flat or declining coffee industry. Specialty coffee, which was once limited to coffee shops, is now available in a wide variety of mass-market channels.
• Specialty coffee is moving into mass-market channels. Coffee is no longer being viewed as just a breakfast beverage; it is now a social beverage, and people like to drink premium branded coffee throughout the day.

  This has spurred partnerships with convenience stores and service companies that provide coffee to offices and throughout the hospitality industry. There is also a change in the type and quality of vending machines. Coffee vending companies are converting their vending machines to branded coffee.

4.3.1 Competition and Buying Patterns

Beanisimo Coffee several different competitors:

• Allan Brothers: This Oregon based company operates as both a roaster as well as running coffee houses in Salem, Eugene, and Corvalis. The price point for their coffee is midway. The quality is decent, particularly at its price point.
• Caffetto: This company widely distributes their roasted coffee throughout the Willamette River Valley. The quality and price point is pretty low. This company’s coffees are attractive if the customer is very price sensitive and need an inexpensive product.
• Assorted varieties distributed by food service vendors (e.g., Food Service of America and Sysco): These varieties are offered at a mid-price point with a low product quality. What you do get with these offerings is individual serving sizes. For a lot of restaurants this is advantageous, but the costs is carried over to the customer for this feature.

The buying patterns for customers is based on convenience, cost, and quality. Some customers are willing to pay more for the convenience of individual sized servings and the benefit of buying coffee from their existing food product vendor. For others coffee is just one more thing on the menu and quality is not that important. Lastly, there are many companies that recognize high quality coffee and espresso and will not settle for anything less.