Cover Story: Flush With Green
Seeing the labor involved in the coffee growing process motivates you to promote things like Fair Trade Coffee, says Ken Crites, director of consumer direct for the Specialty Coffee business unit. "The experience motivates you to treat every coffee bean as precious," he added.
GMCR's social responsibility ties into its business model. "What's good for the world is good for our business," DuLong says. GMCR feels its commitment to environmental sustainability has provided it with a competitive advantage. In particular, it focuses on six areas:
•partnering with supply-chain communities;
•supporting its local community;
•protecting the environment – GMCR has delivered normalized waste reduction of 43 percent over the last five years and normalized energy reduction of 56 percent over the same time period;
•building demand for sustainable products – in 2009, 30 percent of GMCR's coffee sold was Fair Trade coffee, and it recently announced that two of its most widely distributed varieties, Green Mountain Coffee blend and Vermont Country blend, will be Fair Trade certified;
•working together for change; and
•creating a great place to work, illustrated by GMCR's 92 percent employee retention rate in its
FY 2009.
Additional Channels
to Engage In
With a Facebook page, Twitter account and company blog, GMCR has an active presence in today's social media landscape. A relative newcomer to the space, GMCR views its social media efforts as a tool to reinforce its brand and messaging. While not a direct sales channel like its catalog and e-commerce sites, GMCR believes social media can be an awareness tool that helps drive future sales.
Independently owned and operated brick-and-mortar stores aren't a part of GMCR's operations … at least at the moment. The company does have a visitor center at its headquarters in Westbury, Vt. that sells products, but that's all. Not willing to say never, DuLong says retail isn't the company's current plans as it seeks to continue its meteoric growth. With a business model that's consistently producing quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year profits well into double digits, the thinking is why fix what isn't broken.
