Chapter Two
After a full year of being in business, I can honestly say there have been quite a few lessons learned. Some of these lessons sidelined my company for months, others made me rethink my business strategy.
As a coffee roaster in California, my state requires I become a processed food manufacturer in order to roast and sell coffee beans. It was my understanding, at first, this was a requirement for food processors, not coffee roasters. Coffee is in this grey area when it relates to food manufacturing. Needless to say, the State of California made it abundantly clear that I needed to have this certificate. This involved an application to be filled out, an interview with a State employee, a facility inspection, and bag label review. This entire process took the better part of 4.5 months. Want to talk about taking the wind from my sails. We're like a ref with a whistle now, but the timeframe that it took to get this certificate was far longer than I ever anticipated.
Certified Organic starts with the farm you're getting your beans from, and continues with your own company certificate. I was selling beans under the Certified Organic label not fully understanding the process. Were the beans cultivated on an organic farm, yes. Was the farm a certified organic farm, yes. But that's where it ends. I, as a roaster, need to have a my own organic certification through the state. It involves a few more applications to fill out, an annual fee, and a facility inspection to confirm you're following the required organic roasting methods. In short, it's not just growing the beans organically, it's the entire process on its way to the bag.
The same beans, from the same farm, from the same tree, might not taste the same from season to season. So many factors go into growing beans (weather mainly) that can alter the flavor of my favorite farm and beans. I can replicate an identical roast from last year's crops, to this year's crops, and see subtle flavor differences. I expected some differences, but not to the extent that I tasted. I've come to realize that every year will be an experiment with roasting the beans from a specific crop until I get a flavor that I'm satisfied with. And that's pretty exciting for a person like myself, who craves seasonal changes.
My business plan sucks. If we're being honest, it's lazy. I thought I could start a business, create a website, make an IG page and market through one source. Occasionally do a Farmer's Market or Rodeo, and see steady, organic (see what I did there) growth. But that just didn't happen. I can argue some of the lack of growth was due to items #1 and #2 above, but the long term reality is that more branding and person to person marketing needs to be done.
