They say things always come in three’s; so when the coffee machine, dishwasher and high-speed oven decided to stop working in the week before Christmas, the good news is that we had all bases covered. What are your emergency plans? In the past, any one of these issues could have sent us into a tailspin, but strangely enough, even though
Author: Mariano Peluso
CoffeeBI Celebrates Its First Anniversary
CoffeeBI celebrated its first anniversary on January 1st. It’s an important milestone for us, remembering that we started 12 months ago, and have continued thanks to the passion of a very small team. Now we are proud to be able to celebrate the loyalty of a tireless team of worldwide reporters, expert consultants, and clients who favoured and stuck with us.
Build It. They Will Come
‘Build it; they will come.’ may have worked for Kevin Costner in ‘The Field of Dreams’ but it’s a strategy that rarely works for coffee shops. Recently we stumbled over one of the best independent coffee shops we never knew existed. We have just been to a town that we visit very infrequently, for a crucial meeting and coming out
Christmas Planning for Independent Coffee Shops
The well oiled seasonal retail calendar drives sales throughout the year, and in many markets, Christmas is the biggest of them all. It’s not always a great trading period for everyone, though. Those coffee shops that are in city centres or shopping malls that attract the hoards are planning their big trading days, stocking up, staffing up and getting ready
Korea: The Coffee Republic
Everyone, I suppose, knows the song “Gangnam style” the K-pop single by the South Korean rapper Psy that on December 2012 became the first YouTube video to reach one billion views. Well, this song satirized “a classy girl who know how to enjoy the freedom of a cup of coffee”. In these words, all what is going on in South Korea: Coffee has become a powerful indicator of class status symbol. Moreover, coffee is the number one beverage in the country (53% of the total drink market) and has even surpassed the demand for “kimchi”, South Korea’s national dish (according to a study by the International Business Times).
On average, the study showed, South Koreans drink coffee 12.2 times per week; they eat “kimchi”, a mix of fermented vegetables that has been a part of the Korean diet since the 1500s, 11.9 times per week and white rice only 6.9 times per week. To drink a fresh bean coffee is not always cheap. In Seoul, a “cup of Joe (COJ)” is more expensive than in the U.S. (about $3.80 against $2.25 on average).[Sign in to continue]
How to Find and Retain Great People
It seems that everyone we speak to at the moment is finding it more and more challenging finding and retaining staff. The additional stress of recruitment and training on a small business like an independent coffee shop can be enormous. When someone leaves a small team, the team goes through a mourning phase and unless there is an immediate replacement,
Why a Not for Profit needs to be Profitable!
Profit is not always purely financial; it can be measured as an advantage or benefit derived from an activity. In particular for charities or social enterprises who will measure their success in many other ways. Every week we talk to many coffee shops and Cafe from different sectors, including the not for profit & charity sector. We come across more
Kona Coffee, Hawaii. The Champagne of Coffee
Hawaii is not only part of a fabulous archipelago in the Pacific, rich in flowers and sea life, but also rich in soil able to grow the coffee plants that produce one of the most expensive coffees in the world. The most famous Hawaiian coffee is “Kona”, cultivated on the slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa, in the North and South Kona Districts
Winking in the Dark
One of the biggest dilemmas or even traps the Independent Coffee Shop owner faces is getting themselves away from the day to day operation. There can be many reasons for this, sometimes the overriding pride or passion leads the owners to believe that only they can serve the customers properly, resulting in that well know disease ‘presenteeism’. The symptoms are
Put Turbo in your Loyalty Program
The Coffee Shops oldest and still the most popular loyalty scheme is the good old stamp card; most coffee shops use stamp cards or something similar to encourage repeat business, but most businesses are missing a massive opportunity to improve their impact significantly. It’s all to do with a psychological effect called ‘The Endowed Progress Effect.’ So here’s the way