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-- Joseph Busler --
Joe Busler brings 34 years reporting experience to his Friday column that looks at people and issues affecting the South Jersey workplace.
You can contact him at (856) 486-2478 or jbusler@courierpostonline.com.
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Didn't take long for Deptford firm to wake up, sell coffee
Friday, February 20, 2004
Until November, for 25 years I lived about a mile from Melitta's coffee-roasting factory at Berlin-Haddonfield Road and Burnt Mill Road in Cherry Hill.
Regularly, the wonderful smell of roasting coffee beans would waft over the neighborhood, an extra treat like a chocolate on the pillow at a nice hotel.
Steve Rohner is similarly gracing his shop's neighborhood with the smell of fresh-roasted coffee. Rohner, 53, is owner of Talk N' Coffee, a gourmet coffee roaster that turns out small batches of premium coffee in his custom-made roaster.
About 15 percent of his business is mail-order, most of it orders taken through his Web site, www.talkncoffee.com or by phone at (800) 597-BEAN. But most of the rest comes from local customers, many of them visitors to the 1,200-square-foot Talk N' Coffee retail store at 1353 Route 41, Deptford, across from the Home Depot near the Deptford Mall. Roasting's done downstairs.
Rohner opened for business, at first in a Sewell industrial park, in July of 1992, expecting to do most of his business wholesale and by catalog.
It didn't happen that way.
"I opened a little retail operation, and it really exploded," he said.
Timing can be everything. 1992 was the year of the Starbucks IPO. The nation was ready to follow the lead of Seattle in the search for a good cup of coffee. For an entrepreneur in the coffee wasteland of South Jersey, where getting a good cup of coffee meant that the diner had cleaned the pot sometimes in the past week, 1992 was perfect.
And Rohner is an entrepreneur, one who happens to love good coffee.
His coffees, all from the quality arabica bean, come from all over the coffee-growing world and range from $6.99 to $39.99 - for Jamaican Blue Mountain - per 12-ounce bag. He also sells teas and candies.
But it's marketing that makes the difference between a failed business selling great coffee and a successful business selling great coffee.
Rohner has struck deals with gift basket businesses to include his coffees. He started a coffee-of-the-month club and a gift operation. Most recently, he started printing full-color private labels and touting small, one-pot packages of coffee branded with your company's name for use as promotional items.
"It's better than a key chain, a pen or a mug," he says.
Rohner, his wife, Elaine, his son Brian, 18, and another employee keep the business running six days a week. He said it took three years to begin turning a noticeable profit.
And it's what he always wanted.
"Since I was a kid, I wanted to be running my own business," he said. "It's a way of getting the most satisfaction out of life. The hard work and the results are all yours, not done for somebody else."
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Joseph Busler's column runs on Friday. You can reach him at (856) 486-2478 or jbusler@courierpostonline.com. Read him online atwww.courierpostonline.com/columnists/busler.html
Back to Joseph Busler's Index
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