People are increasingly drinking their coffee at home, rather than in specialty coffee bars or other foodservice venues. Some of this change reflects the rising consumer prices and the additional premium paid for venturing out for a barista-made drink.
However, it’s not all about cost: for a significant cross-section of consumers, they’re not driven by saving money at all. Instead, according to reporting in the trade magazine Beverage Industry, are trying to recreate their barista-led experience in their homes.
Retail coffee continues to be positioned for growth, and offering your customers an option to not only deepen the at-home experience but expand their world with a unique selection of gourmet coffee will help attract them into your store and reclaim some of the money that previously went into take-out coffee. By stocking hard-to-find gourmet coffees like Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee like Rocksteady Coffee, your store can be a key part of the at home ritual.
Your Customers are Channeling Their Buying Power into the Coffee Experience
If you look at the latest industry research, ready-to-drink coffee, including especially cold brew and nitro coffees, are driving the market. These coffee drinkers, primarily those 18-24, want the barista experience at home, but they don’t want to become the barista. They want quality, but they’re less interested in experience.
Another group of coffee drinkers who are foregoing the twice-daily trip into a coffee shop are doing so because they not only want to become the barista but be even better than the barista.
Research shows the 25-39 age group is less interested in pods and ready-to-drink coffee and more interested in experimentation: new brewing methods, new flavor profiles, and most importantly, new coffee offerings. They’re interested in not just replacing their lattes and pour overs, building experiences that they can’t get from their local coffee shop. They also have incredible buying power.
Where has that buying power gone in the last few years? Manufacturers report more consumers investing in higher-quality coffee equipment, from grinders to pouring kettles.
So what do your customers look for in gourmet coffee?
Market research gives a clear indication:
- Sustainable and organic: General consumer trends point towards a preference for sustainable, eco-friendly, or organic methods, and the same is true for coffee. They’re not only preferring brands that grow coffee sustainably but they’ll pay more for them, just as they will other sustainable products.
- Clear connection to the farmers: Marketing in the coffee industry almost always connects the brand to the farm or even the farmer. But this connection is very blurry, both for buyers and producers. If the consumer can find a clear, traceable connection to a coffee farm, they’re buying a very distinct product.
- Real consumer trust: Consumers increasingly want to buy from brands they trust, which means buying a coffee that’s traceable, sustainable, and of a high quality.
Finding these in the global coffee market is difficult, but that’s why gourmet coffees, especially Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, are growing in popularity among key buyers.
Why Rocksteady Coffee Fuels the Coffee Experience Obsession
Product differentiation helps you attract and retain customers, especially in a fragmented market like food retail. And there are few more differentiated products than Rocksteady Coffee, a coffee that offers up the gift of a deep love of coffee and community, grown in an incredible microclimate.
Rocksteady Coffee experience is instantly recognizable and irreplaceable with the classic chocolatey notes that come with a Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. Our team of expert farmers hand-reaps our coffee, selecting only the ripest beans in every pass. We dry our beans naturally in the sun and use alkaline spring water from the farm to semi-wash the beans. Rocksteady Coffee beans are also hulled at the time of roasting as opposed to being hulled and allowed to deteriorate in storage.
The result isn’t just a technically perfect cup of coffee: it’s an experience of devotion that our customers not only savor but take joy in sharing with the people who mean the most to them.
Rocksteady Coffee is also differentiated in a way that specifically attracts those customers for whom sustainability and trust are a part of the homebrewing experience. Retailers stock Rocksteady Coffee because we’re unique even in the gourmet coffee market. We grow and manufacture our coffee according to the high quality standards required to hold the Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee certification. But more importantly, we go further than even our peers, and we offer the trust that enhances the experience.
Rocksteady Coffee employs our farmers year round, a feat in agriculture in general and virtually unheard of in coffee growing, even in Jamaica.
Our connection to our community comes through in every single hand-reaped bean as it travels from our farm, through the drying and roasting phases and eventually to the homes of our coffee drinkers.
In short, the Rocksteady Coffee experience brings together:
- Fair labor and employment practices that build the community in Portland Parish
- Organic growing methods focused on producing the best beans and serving as a steward of the incredible Blue and John Crow Mountains
- Small batch approach to carry low roasted coffee inventory
Are you ready to learn more about the Rocksteady Coffee story and how you can become part of our community? Get in touch to learn more.