50 PROFILE "The alternative is to increase
your prices to what might be an unacceptably high level for some consumers, or to ride out the high prices and for your margins to take a hit. I think it’s inevitable that prices are going to have to rise. The alternative is that quality is affected and the end result of high prices for green coffee will be that consumption falls. After all the hard work that has been put into increasing consumption that is something the industry as a whole should fight hard to avoid."
Continued
consolidation "We have already seen the land- scape change quite a bit, just in the last 12 months or so," Mr White told C&CI. "Smaller players have already disappeared. I think you’re going to see continued consolidation in the market, and I think that the companies that manage to stick around will be those that can offer their clients something different. "That’s why we have invested in
marketing and packaging in the way that we have. We have invested in our brand and at the same time we’ve been successful winning a number of deals recently to roast and pack coffee under licence for our clients." Sticking to the strategy that has served
The deal with Kahlúa has seen White Coffee develop a number of blends, packaging options and marketing strategies
"We have also developed a wide vari-
ety of packaging options. These include single pot brick packs, 12 ounce pack- ages, and 2.5 pound club-store value
it well over the past seven decades seems to be paying off, and White Coffee recently signed a number of deals to roast branded coffee for clients. Apart from own-brand coffee, private label has always been an important part of what White Coffee does. "We create custom blends to match
specific profiles and provide marketing and graphic art expertise," Mr White explained, highlighting a recent deal to roast and package Kahlúa, which has become the number one selling coffee liqueur in the world. Describing the work that the company
has done for Kahlúa, Mr White said: "We have developed proprietary coffee blends/flavours for five different coffees to date. Several additional flavours may be developed as well."
"I think part of the problem
is that for a number of years people in the industry have
really lived off the fat of the land. They didn’t want to
accept that there were issues that needed to be addressed. As an industry we have allowed a situation to
develop in which stocks have been drawn down to
historically low levels," Mr White told C&CI.
The company’s deal with Asociación Primaveral will enable growers to upgrade their processing facilities
packages. We have also combined these bags into additional combi- nation options for holiday purchas- es such as Kahlúa licensed choco- late or glassware with coffee, and multiple coffee packages in one gift sale." As Mr White explained, these
items have been promoted via ‘road show’ sampling demos at major retailers, and via trade advertisements and radio ads. More than 4,000 store locations carried the Kahlúa product in 2010. "Based upon major presenta-
tions to date, we anticipate a sig- nificant expansion of locations in 2011, both throughout the year and particularly holiday season,"
he explained. Current sellers of the product include a wide variety of regional specialty and supermar- ket distributors, national mass merchants, national and regional supermarket chains, and specialty shops. "We also have a licence with
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, a prominent West Coast retailer, and recently created pack- aging for the world-famous
‘Juniors’ cheesecake stores, to be sold through other distribution and retailers. We hope to announce another major licence agreement
with a nationally-known complimentary product, with expected placement in the second half of 2011," Mr White told C&CI.
Putting
something back Putting something back into coffee com- munities is also important to Mr White, who cites the example of a new relation- ship the company has established with Asociación Primaveral, a coffee coopera- tive in Huila, Colombia. Asociación Primaveral is a collection
of 24 coffee growers who live and work on farms south of Huila. As part of its deal with the growers, White Coffee Corporation will make a voluntary cash payment, over and above the regular purchase price for the coffee, to enable Asociación Primaveral to add to and upgrade coffee drying facilities and expand production capacity. C&CI
May 2011 C&CI
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