Coffee Holding Co., Inc. (‘Coffee Holding’) conducts wholesale coffee operations, including manufacturing, roasting, packaging, marketing and distributing roasted and blended coffees for private labeled accounts and its own brands, and it sells green coffee.
Products and Operations
The company is an integrated wholesale coffee roaster and dealer located in the United States. The company’s core products can be divided into three categories:
Wholesale Green Coffee: unroasted raw beans imported...
Coffee Holding Co., Inc. (‘Coffee Holding’) conducts wholesale coffee operations, including manufacturing, roasting, packaging, marketing and distributing roasted and blended coffees for private labeled accounts and its own brands, and it sells green coffee.
Products and Operations
The company is an integrated wholesale coffee roaster and dealer located in the United States. The company’s core products can be divided into three categories:
Wholesale Green Coffee: unroasted raw beans imported from around the world and sold to large and small roasters and coffee shop operators;
Private Label Coffee: coffee roasted, blended, packaged, and sold under the specifications and names of others, including supermarkets that want to have their own brand name on coffee to compete with national brands; and
Branded Coffee: coffee roasted and blended to the company’s own specifications, packaged, and sold under its eight proprietary and licensed brand names in different segments of the market.
The company’s private label and branded coffee products are sold throughout the United States and certain countries in Asia to supermarkets, wholesalers, and individually owned and multi-unit retail customers. The company’s unprocessed green coffee, which includes over 90 specialty coffee offerings, is primarily sold to specialty gourmet roasters in the United States, Canada, and multiple international countries.
The company conducts its operations in accordance with strict freshness and quality standards. All of the company’s private label and branded coffees are produced from high-quality coffee beans that are deep roasted for full flavor using a slow roasting process that has been perfected utilizing almost 50 years of experience in the coffee industry. In order to ensure freshness, the company’s products are delivered to its customers within 72 hours of roasting.
Growth Strategy
The company’s significant growth opportunities exist by selectively pursuing strategic acquisitions and alliances, increasing penetration with existing customers by adding new products, developing its Harmony Bay brand, and increasing the number of its wholesale green coffee customers. By capitalizing on this strategy, the company hopes to continue to grow its business with its commitment to quality and personalized service to its customers.
The company’s strategies are to selectively pursue strategic acquisitions and alliances; grow its Cafe Caribe and Cafe Supremo products; and further market penetration of its niche products, which include new licensing agreements, specialty blends, foodservice opportunities, and sales of its tabletop coffee roasting equipment.
Core Products
The company’s core products can be divided into three categories:
Wholesale Green Coffee: The specialty coffee market remains the fastest-growing area of the company’s industry. The number of gourmet coffee houses has been increasing in all areas of the United States. The growth in specialty coffee sales has created a marketplace for higher quality and differentiated products, which can be priced at a premium in the marketplace. As a large roaster-dealer of green coffee, the company is favorably positioned to increase its specialty coffee sales. The company sells green coffee beans to small roasters and coffee shop operators located throughout the United States and carries over approximately 90 different varieties. Specialty green coffee beans are sold unroasted, direct from warehouses to small roasters and gourmet coffee shop operators, which then roast the beans themselves. The company sells from as little as one bag (132 pounds) to a full truckload (44,000 pounds) of specialty green coffee beans, depending on the size and need of the customer.
Private Label Coffee: The company roasts, blends, packages, and sells coffee under private labels for companies throughout the United States and Canada. The company’s private label coffee is sold in cans, brick packages, and instants in a variety of sizes. The company produces private label coffee for customers who desire to sell coffee under their own name but do not want to engage in the manufacturing process. The company’s private label customers seek a quality similar to the national brands at a lower cost, which represents a better value for the consumer.
Branded Coffee: The company roasts and blends its branded coffee according to its own recipes and packages the coffee at its facilities in La Junta, Colorado, and North Andover, Massachusetts. The company then sells the packaged coffee under its brand labels to supermarkets, wholesalers, and individually-owned stores throughout the United States.
The company holds trademarks for each of its proprietary name brands and has the exclusive right to use the S&W, IL CLASSICO brand names in the United States in connection with the production, manufacture, and sale of roasted whole bean and ground coffee for distribution at the retail level.
Each of the company’s name brands is directed at a particular segment of the coffee market. The company’s branded coffees are:
Cafe Caribe, a specialty espresso coffee that targets espresso coffee drinkers and, in particular, the Latin consumer market;
Don Manuel, which is produced from the finest 100% Colombian coffee beans. Don Manuel is an upscale quality product that commands a substantial premium compared to the more traditional brown coffee blends. The company also uses this known trademark in its food service business because of the high brand quality;
S&W, an upscale canned coffee established in 1921 and includes Premium, Premium Decaf, French Roast, Colombian, Colombian Decaf, Swiss Water Decaf, Kona, Mellow’d Roast, and IL CLASSICO lines;
Cafe Supremo, a specialty espresso that targets espresso drinkers of all backgrounds and tastes. It is designed to introduce coffee drinkers to the tastes of dark roasted coffee;
Via Roma, an Italian espresso targeted at the more traditional espresso drinker;
Premier Roasters, a line of high-quality Arabica coffees packed in composite cans and poly bags, and single serve;
Harmony Bay, an upscale line of flavored beans in 11oz and 40oz bags, along with single serve offerings in a multitude of unique flavor profiles; and
Café Femenino Coffee, coffee beans produced from around the world from 100% women-owned coffee cooperatives.
Other Products
The company also offers several niche products, including tea, and table-top coffee roasters and grinders.
Trademarks and Tradename
The company holds trademarks, registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, for all eight of its proprietary coffee brands and an exclusive license for S&W brands for sale in the United States. Trademark registrations are subject to periodic renewal, and the company anticipates maintaining its registrations.
Customers
The company sells its private label and branded coffee to some of the largest retail and wholesale customers in the United States.
Although the company’s agreements with wholesale customers generally contain only pricing terms, its contracts with certain customers also contain minimum and maximum purchase obligations at fixed prices. Because the company’s profits on a fixed-price contract could decline if coffee prices increased, the company acquires futures contracts with longer terms (generally three to four months) primarily for the purpose of guaranteeing an adequate supply of green coffee at favorable prices.
Marketing
The company markets its private label and wholesale coffee through trade shows, industry publications, face-to-face contact, and through the use of its internal sales force and non-exclusive independent food and beverage sales brokers. The company also uses its website (www.coffeeholding.com) as a method of marketing its coffee products and itself.
For the company’s private label and branded coffees, the company will, from time to time, in conjunction with retailers and wholesalers, conduct in-store promotions, such as product demonstrations, coupons, price reductions, two-for-one sales, and new product launches to capture changing consumer taste preferences for upscale canned, bagged, and single cup coffees.
The company evaluates opportunities for growth consistent with its business objectives. In addition, the company has established relationships with independent sales brokers to market its products across the United States, in areas of the country where the company has not had a high penetration of sales, and in Canada. The company utilizes its in-house sales personnel to market its private label brands. The company intends to capture additional market share in its existing distribution channels by selectively adding or introducing new brand names and products across multiple price points, including niche specialty blends, private label ‘value’ blends, tea, and its own brands, filter packages, and peripheral products.
The company is a licensed Fair Trade dealer of Fair Trade certified coffee.
Competition
Private Label Competition: The company’s main competitor is the Massimo Zanetti Beverage Company.
The company’s private label and branded coffee products compete with other manufacturers of private label coffee and branded coffees. These competitors, such as Kraft Foods, Inc. (owner of the Maxwell House brand), and J.M. Smucker Co. (owner of the Folgers and Café Bustelo brands), have much greater financial, marketing, distribution, management, and other resources than the company does for marketing, promotions, and geographic and market expansion.
History
The company was founded in 1971. The company was incorporated in 1995. It was formerly known as Transpacific International Group Corp and changed its name to Coffee Holding Co., Inc. in April 1998.
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