Welcome to our third issue of the Swiss Water Wave.
Unfortunately, we in the coffee world, like everyone else, are in mourning as a result of the terrible earthquake and tsunamis which struck Asia. Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company will be making a significant donation to the aid effort, with the hopes of directing funds to those particularly affected in Sumatra.
-- Frank Dennis, president & CEO
 |
We are in the process of significantly diversifying and expanding our product
portfolio and we now offer four exciting, new decafs, which include, Organic Mexico and Organic Fair Trade Certified' Mexico Udepom, Organic Peru, and Organic Fair Trade Certified' Peru Chanchamayo La Florida.
"We've had a consistent line-up for years," Ben Hieltjes, VP of Sales offers. "While we've added a few new products over the past few years, such as our very successful Premium Espresso Blend, we believe that decaf drinkers deserve greater variety. We think that more variety will lead to greater interest in the category and, finally, more revenues and profits from decafs for our roasters and specialty coffee retailers." Throughout the year, we will be adding more organic and non-organic offerings as well.
What can you expect from these new coffees? Diana Chan, our green coffee buyer, tells us what you will experience. The Organic Peru features a medium body and a bright, lively cup, while the Organic Fair Trade Peru Chanchamayo La Florida has full body, complex aroma, and a sweet & well-balanced cup. Both Mexican coffees have a medium body and acidity, with hints of chocolate. Chan noted, "We are introducing these coffees in order to expand and diversify our range of products, and to continually meet the evolving needs of our customers."
The La Florida coffee comes from the slopes of the Andes Mountains in the Chanchamayo region of Central Peru; it is grown at an altitude of 4,500 feet. The Mexican coffees come from the Sierra Madre region in Southern Mexico. The coffee is grown at a high altitude and the native Mayan farmers on the volcanic highland grow all the coffee in the old style-preserving the tropical forest and without the use of chemicals, fertilizers or pesticides.
For a complete list of our product offerings, please visit: http://www.swisswater.com/partners/coffees/offering
|
|
As the specialty coffee industry has flourished, consumers have become more inquisitive about the "story" behind the coffee they drink, from how it's grown to what process is used to decaffeinate it. Educating your staff on all aspects of coffee will help win customer trust and loyalty. Believing that knowledge is power, we developed a comprehensive decaffeinated coffee education program that was initiated in mid-2003. The centerpiece for our program is the SWISS WATERŪ Process 101 guide and video (http://www.swisswater.com/decaf/process), created to empower baristas to knowledgeably respond to consumer inquiries regarding decaffeination. We also created quick reference info cards for consumers, which explain how the process works.
Dale Link, Director of Training at the The Coffee Beanery, based in Flushing, Michigan has been at the company for three years and says he has been using some form of Swiss Water decaf education materials since he started. Link has being using the newly released decaf education video in classes he holds for franchise partners. Link adds, "I view Swiss Water Process as a major marketing advantage." He believes that Swiss Water's detailed description of the various decaffeination processes is a useful tool for educating customers and staff.
"Educating everyone on our team with regard to the Swiss Water Process was extremely important to us at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf," noted Jay Isais, the green coffee buyer for the chain. "In addition to using the materials, including the video, we took the extra step of flying several of our team members up to the Vancouver, BC plant for a tour and an in depth presentation."
We're devoted to helping our customers educate their staff, and, finally, the decaf drinker, with regard to how coffee is decaffeinated. "We believe that coffees decaffeinated using the chemical free Swiss Water Process offer a great combination of benefits to decaf drinkers including great taste, wide variety and the wholesome assurance of the SWISS WATERŪ brand," noted Ben Hieltjes, VP of Sales, "It's critical that an organization's entire team be informed as to the benefits that Swiss Water Process decaf coffees offer, and we're committed to helping them get there."
|
|
|
In this new feature, we will highlight efforts made by our customers to promote their SWISS WATERŪ Process decafs to consumers.
 Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has adopted Swiss Water decaffeinated coffee for all their decaf needs for a year and a half and the results have proved to be a win-win-win, the third and biggest winner being the decaf drinker who can now go into any Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf store, worldwide, and get freshly processed, high quality decaf coffees in a variety of blends and single origins.
The two companies have teamed up to produce in-store merchandising materials and redesigns of the store's menu boards, chain-wide. Even the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf stores in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur now exclusively feature Swiss Water Process decaffeinated coffee.
"We've produced two great in-store posters, the first announced our conversion to the Swiss Water Process for all of our decaf coffees and the second gave our customers more in-depth information on the process itself," Jay Isais, the chain's green coffee buyer noted. "We believe that the whole Swiss Water package is a compelling one, it begins with great tasting decaffeinated coffees but it includes all the educational materials, their help in educating our employees and customers and their assistance in developing customized in-store merchandising materials.
|
Sometimes it feels like I'm not in a decaffeination facility but on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and Captain Kirk (or Picard or Janeway, if you prefer) has just shouted, "Warp Drive!" and we're all holding on for dear life. As I write this, we've just added four new offerings with more to come in the near future. Not only that, we're processing more coffee than we ever have before and that means several quality control cuppings every day, in addition to cupping for all the new offerings we're bringing in.
Click here to read more.
|
|
The US Dollar has been in the news lately. Traditionally one of the world's strongest currencies, the world's "reference" currency has lately been decreasing in value in comparison to the Euro, the Pound AND the Canadian Dollar. This means that for every US dollar of revenue that Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company, Inc. collects, we actually collect fewer Canadian Dollars. For instance, two years ago the Canadian Dollar was worth less than sixty-five US Cents. Today, it's worth over eighty. This means that when the Canadian Dollar was worth sixty US Cents SWDCC would essentially collect 1.54 Canadian Dollars, now we take in 1.25 Canadian Dollars, a 20% decrease. Obviously this has a big impact on our profits and the situation forced us to raise prices a while back.
As a company with over 50% of its sales generated in US dollars, we must still pay most of our bills for salaries, supplies and fuel in what are now more valuable Canadian Dollars. The good news is that currencies, like coffee, can be hedged-you can do things to protect yourself from currency fluctuations and we have actually taken several steps in this regard. We believe that we'll be able to maintain our current pricing for the foreseeable future.
As an aside, the falling US Dollar's effects aren't limited to Canadian companies selling to the US. Coffee farmers around the world generally collect US Dollars for their crops, but they must convert these funds into the local currency to buy food, clothing, and many farm supplies. This puts upward pressure on the coffee market in order to offset this loss of revenue-one of the reasons many speculators lately have placed bets (by buying coffee futures) that the coffee market will be going up over the next few months if the dollar continues to fall.
|
 We'll be exhibiting at Coffee Fest Chicago, Feb. 25-27. Please drop by to say hello and find out the latest news from Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company.
|
|
|
Look for our next issue in April!
If you would prefer not to receive future issues of the Swiss Water Wave,
please reply to this message and you will be removed from our distribution list.
' is a registered trademark of TransFair USA
®/TM are trademarks of Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company Inc.
|