Kuzminblog

Changing the world for better... at least the world of gas stations)

Month: August 2016

Why I invite Costa Express in Russia or «Welcome and No Trespassing»

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On 26.08.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, RusHOLTS, Сoffee business

“Without my friends there’s a little bit of me, but with a lot of friends there’s plenty of myself” – lines from a soviet children’s song perfectly describes the essential meaning of co-operation in any business. You can be the author of most innovative solutions, to develop breakthrough technologies, but it’s only going to be possible to bring it to a state of “finished product” by going through a complex chain of cooperation with a number of business partners.

And this is true even for applied business initiatives of the microscopic, compared to the market standards, formats. Opening a small shop selling two or three positions of coffee beverages and about the same range of pastries (i.e. we’re talking about literally micro scale of business, not even SMBs), immediately causes the owners of such an enterprise to the need to acquire the suppliers of coffee machines, cups, coffee beans or ready-to-use blends , semi-finished products for baking, microwave oven – and so on and so forth.

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Costa Coffee: supply chain as a growth factor

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On 18.08.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, RusHOLTS, Сoffee business

When traditional logistic models and the organization of the supply chain have jeopardized the dynamic growth of the company, the owners of Costa Coffee went all-in. The company completely changed the leadership, adopted a new strategy for the organization of supply, hired a new logistics operator, and also introduced a new enterprise software to provide a new level of benefit from the telemetry component of its system. We believe that the final result speaks for itself.

Author’s note
When I was preparing this article, i was surprised by how similar problems had to be solved in RusHOLTS around the same time. An illustration of the similarity could be invention of the rad by Marconi and Popov. The problem is in the air and solution comes to those who are looking for it. Only RusHOLTS had to be tis own “new” logistics operator because of the lack of worthy proposals. No “regional partners”, no services outsourcing – only our own trained and well-managed structures that guarantee the high quality of work.

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Delicious coffee with the minimum human involvement. Costa Express – white starts and wins

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On 11.08.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, RusHOLTS, Сoffee business

Vending as a sales technique is good – but only when it comes to newspapers, chocolates and chips, as well as personal care products. He who presses the button is the one who got the goods. Just pushed it – and continued their own way. Coffee beverages vending business now comes with minimum human involvement.

Coffee vending tend to vary in terms of product quality from “Lord, what is this ???” to “Well, okay.” Why is that? Because making of coffee – is a complex process with a thousand of nuances. No exceptions. The only thing that differs very much from a good “vending coffee» to a vending of a bad coffee” – is a chain Costa Coffee called Costa Express Company.

Costa Express Coffee – is an unexpected example of the coffee business in terms of a combination of indicators varying from “country of origin”. How this company was able to appear in the UK, a country of a totalitarian tea cult – it is a mystery. Nevertheless, it was there in 1971 when this brand appeared, which not only takes a confident second place in the World after Starbucks but represents today the very notion of “premium coffee vending” that tend to vary in terms of product quality, from “Lord, what is ???” to “Well, okay.” Why is that? Because making the coffee is a complex process with a thousand nuances. Virtually no exceptions. The only thing that is very distracting from the association with «vending coffee –is a vending of a bad coffee” – is a chain called  in Costa Coffee.

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Project Marlow – сoffee GOELRO* plan

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On 09.08.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, Сoffee business

In 2011, Costa Coffee, the second largest chain of coffee shops, decided to expand its portfolio and hit the vending area.

The movement in the new direction began with the acquisition of the Coffee Nation chain – thus Costa Express brand was born. Costa decided not to lose time and quickly started to transform the quality of vending coffee to new heights.
The main tool for the breakthrough was going to be a new approach to the implementation of the vending machine itself to make it an example of all that people usually invest in the concept of “innovation”.

Brewing high-quality coffee “from-grain-to-the-cup” via the vending machine – it’s a constant challenge. At some stage it was even a challenge to the very common sense. Getting a consistently high level of quality in the long run was not allowed by the specific historical moment’s technology.

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The “Marlow Project” team

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Is Your Cup of Coffee Worth Paying that Price?

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On 04.08.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, Сoffee business

How much should a cup of your favorite coffee cost? What key factors does the price include? Which coffee is cheaper? One will hardly find the exact answer to all those questions when considering a well-flavored aromatic drink, as we are speaking of a tasty one. 

Regularly proceeding with an in-depth statistics and analysis, coffee market experts are very unlikely to reveal the truth. They know that the average price may range from $0.5 to $1 per cup of your beloved espresso or Americano. Those drinks do not require additional ingredients like milk making cost price lower if compared with latte o cappuccino. Producers and marketers benefit from enormous revenues selling their products with up to 1000% markup. For this reason, the niche appears to have a great potential for businesses, which use all possible means to protect their segment keeping newcomers away. They established an average market price, which is about $1 per cup.

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