EXPANSION
Java Blend finds right balance
“At the height of lockdowns, not fully understanding the rules, we wanted to find a way to open the café to let people in. We actually kept the cafe closed for a very long time because we didn’t want to threaten production by bringing in the public.” Adam Bose
For a guy whose business was almost ruined by COVID and who has unlimited access to coffee, Adam Bose doesn’t seem at all jittery.
Bose and partners Joseph Dunford and Alex Lee own the venerable Java Blend coffee shop in Halifax, along with the Cortado Tasting Room in Bedford and Sine Coffee Labs.
Two years ago, the trio bought Java Blend from the man who operated it for 40 years.
“We don’t have much money, so a bank had to take a big risk on us, which they did,” Bose said about a transaction that was completed just a few months before the pandemic began.
“We rely a lot on wholesale customers; we supply 300-400 wholesale customers around Atlantic Canada, the majority of them cafes, and some small independent grocery stores and small specialty stores,” said Bose, who wasn’t selling coffee to large grocery stores at that time, which was disastrous.
“Because 90 per cent of our cafe customers shut their doors to try to figure out how to deal with things, whereas grocery stores stayed open so it would have been advantageous to be in grocery stores.”
Revenue from the wholesale side of the business shrunk by 90 per cent during the height of the pandemic but has recovered. Now, the process of getting into bigger stores and making overall revenue more stable has begun. As of two months ago, Java Blend products are on Superstore shelves in Halifax, Fredericton and P.E.I.
“The goal is to be in every one in Atlantic Canada,” said Bose, adding that big grocery stores get more approachable varieties of coffee, as opposed to the “adventurous” beans that go to specialty stores.
“Not to say we spend any less time or effort on the coffees that are going to Superstore. They’re all on the same level.”
During COVID, employment was reduced from 50-60 to just the three owners, doing everything from driving the delivery van to roasting beans to packaging. They worked 17-hour days every day for three months before rehiring started, and now all their workers are back on the job.
Another change saw all roasting and packaging moved from the cafe on North Street to the company’s Dartmouth warehouse.
“A couple of decisions motivated us to move all packaging over to Burnside,” said Bose.
“At the height of lockdowns, not fully understanding the rules, we wanted to find a way to open the café to let people in. We actually kept the cafe closed for a very long time because we didn’t want to threaten production by bringing in the public.”
The change eliminated the crossover between production space and the places where customers gathered. It also allowed production to be ramped up and created more serving space at the cafe.
Bose said there is much work done behind the scenes to create the finished products that are poured for customers. Java Blend imports beans from more than a dozen countries, and that number is growing all the time.
“We can buy coffee that costs $1.80 or two dollars a pound, raw, or we can buy coffee for ... $200, $300, $500 a pound,” he said.
“We’re obviously not going to do that (very often) but there is a market out there for it. There are people who want to experience that expensive coffee.”