March 2017 - Retail experiments, Royal Sydney 2017 Coffee Awards.

Date Posted:5 March 2017 

“The superior man understands what is right. The inferior man understands what will sell.” — Confucius

 

 

Welcome to the March 2017 newsletter.

This month, we are running an experiment to test a topical retail theory that has been circulating management and business news recently.

It's about something that has changed the retail landscape of Australia in the last few years and directly led to the failure of many brands and companies - called unsustainable discounting.

Newsletter subscribers are exclusively offered a discount code this month to apply on a coffee - we are not going to publish that code here or anywhere else - just in our monthly Newsletter as a reward for our loyal subscribers.

Suuweet, Kenya, Redemption of the Spro and Decaf were all winners at last month's 2017 Royal Sydney Coffee Awards - read our story below on why these coffee remain clear favorites with our customers.

the rwandan retail experiment
 

Over the last decade we have built our position in the market by offering quality, fresh roasted coffees using an everyday competitive price policy.

Of course it's really quite difficult to analyze true value as quality versus price versus flavor are all highly subjective correlations.

This is an exclusive offer for our mycuppa Newsletter subscribers. We are going to trial a discount on just one(1) coffee, one pack size for a 20% discount for a limited time only, or until the allocation is sold out.

The code is not going to be publicly advertised here or anywhere else except for our newsletter - even the product itself will have no clues as to the availability of a discount.

 

2017 Royal Sydney Coffee Awards


"Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character" - John Wooden

Last month, we picked up a high ranked Silver medal for our Suuweet blend in the milk-based espresso (Cappuccino/Latte/Flat White) category. Our Kenya also won another Silver in Single Origin category at the 2017 Royal Sydney Coffee Awards.

These were fantastic achievements backing up from our big wins last year taking 2x Gold, Silver, Bronze, 2016 Best in Show and Champion Roaster. Both these categories are generally regarded as the toughest in the event and most highly sought-after medals. Our Decaf and Redemption of the Spro picked up Bronze medals in the Decaf and Espresso categories.

The win for Suuweet was particularly pleasing as this coffee has been near and dear to my heart for so long it's part of the family. It's a coffee that has won many medals over the last 7 years and it's also the coffee that occupies the majority of my thoughts on a daily basis - whether it's roasting, cupping or sourcing, it is the most strategically important coffee within our portfolio.

When Suuweet was originally designed in late 2008, the brief was rather ambitious - create a stylish, classy, rich and rewarding premium blend to compete on a compelling value proposition. It had to be a level above everything else offered in the market and yet be priced at or below.

Throughout it's numerous evolutions, Suuweet blend has remained true to this brief - a simple principle of "more for less". It occupies a place in the middle of the taste and flavour spectrum, a coffee that can appeal to the majority of coffee lovers without offending anyone. Those of you familiar with the fickle palate of many coffee drinkers will know it's not easy to create something that is widely accepted. Suuweet rewards with subtle highlights that linger long after the cup empties - the true sign of an endearing coffee.

If you asked me 12 months ago if I could imagine a Kenyan coffee growing to be the most popular and successful single origin amongst our mycuppa customers, I would have laughed it off with a typical Darryl Kerrighan response - "tell him he's dreaming".

Historically, high grade Kenyan coffees had not been broadly available in the retail market due to the both the high cost and the intense, pointed attributes of the cup profile. At times Kenyans have wild acidity that requires taming with a deft hand both on the roaster and the espresso machine. Therefore, it was more common for Kenyan coffees to be used in smaller ratios as a blend highlight for a premium offering or special purpose brewing objectives such as plunger/French press or filter coffees where the powerful acids and high flavour levels of Kenyans help strengthen cup outcomes.

As we did with our Suuweet blend, we took some bold steps with quality Kenyans to create a coffee product that was going to be more suitable for the coffee enthusiast and also deliver upon our enduring value proposition of providing more for less.

In our March 2017 Newsletter we often feature an opinion piece from our Roaster - ironically named The Roaster's Rant.

The information published in our newsletter is rather controversial, so for the sake of keeping the peace within our industry, we are not prepared to publish that article publicly.

For those of you interested, the topic of the article was the great deception taking place in the Coffee Roasting Competitions - companies using cheque book coffee and winning medals on roasting systems using beans that bear no similarities to their everyday coffees. In other words, they are treating consumers as fools with the classic "bait & switch" marketing.