Coffee business takes center stage

ROASTED: Dave’s Coffee owner Dave Lanning unloads the roasting machine after a batch of coffee beans finished roasting. The company began as an espresso bar in 2003. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
ROASTED: Dave’s Coffee owner Dave Lanning unloads the roasting machine after a batch of coffee beans finished roasting. The company began as an espresso bar in 2003. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

The big demand for small-batch-roasted coffee and cold-brewed coffee syrups has pushed Dave’s Coffee into a bigger facility and helped it break into the international marketplace.
The business was established in 2003 with an espresso bar in a renovated 1740 farmhouse in Charlestown. The coffee shop was a sidelight to the successful 16-year-old Galapagos boutique run by Dave Lanning’s wife, Sandra Lanning.
The coffee bar was a progression of the couple’s continuing interest in launching small businesses. They started a successful online apparel business and had specialty shops, including a hearts-and-poems temporary popup shop at a mall around Valentine’s Day.
Until the current expansion-in-progress for coffee roasting, syrup production, packaging and distribution, Dave Lanning’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth wasn’t an obvious advantage for the business.
Now, with the planned move from a 400-square-foot roasting facility in Westerly to a 7,500-square-foot location in Narragansett in the next few months, the need to develop machinery for production and distribution has put Lanning’s engineering skills to work.
“It’s funny how everything you learn comes back in life,” said Lanning. “At the new location in Narragansett, we have machinery that applies labels. We’ll have more roasting and packaging of our whole-bean coffee.
“I think it helps a lot having a background in mechanical engineering when you’re laying out floor plans and reading mechanical drawings,” said Lanning. “It keeps us from having to hire someone to do some of the work.”
Developing the line of all-natural syrup was another path for putting Lanning’s engineering skills to work.
“We cold-brew our coffee in a big, stainless vat for coffee syrup. We had to design it,” said Lanning. “We had to take a big, steam kettle like they use in restaurants and get a local welder to make a custom filter. It’s just one of those things that isn’t out there.”
Sales of the craft-roasted, whole-bean coffee to gourmet restaurants like Farmstead in Providence and large buyers, including Whole Foods, have been a foundation for success. Dave’s Coffee sells to 28 Whole Foods locations in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine. The coffee is selling at about 2,000 pounds a week for wholesale and retail, but the syrup has also spurred the company’s growth.
Dave’s All Natural Coffee Syrup debuted in 2012 in the original and vanilla flavors. The mocha and decaf syrups were introduced this year.
In the first year, 30,000 bottles of the syrup have been sold, and not just in Rhode Island where “coffee milk” was so popular the legislature adopted it as the official state drink in 1993.
Apparently, buyers of Dave’s Coffee syrup are not just learning to replace chocolate milk with coffee milk.
“I’ve found a lot of people are buying the syrup as a dessert item, pouring it onto ice cream or baking with it. I know people use it in cookies,” said Lanning. “I’ve been to food shows and used our syrup in mixed drinks.”
Dave’s All Natural Coffee Syrup has two main ingredients – cold-brewed coffee and pure cane sugar, said Lanning. For the vanilla syrup, real Madagascar vanilla beans are used, not vanilla extract.
Lanning figures it’s the natural ingredients and the versatility of the syrups fueling demand, fed by the rising interest in creative culinary specialties.
A big boost for the syrup came through fab.com, an e-commerce site that covers everything from food to furniture.
“Fab.com has different products highlighted for a week,” he said. “That was our first experience partnering with an online seller.
“We sold 1,000 bottles of syrup in seven days,” said Lanning. “Of those 1,000, two orders came from Rhode Island and everything else from all over. We got a ton of orders from California, New York and Texas.”
Dave’s Coffee products have also been discovered in Canada and the U.K.
The international sales are a promising new market, and while the roasted, whole-bean coffee has a shelf life of three months, Lanning said he is dedicated to maintaining the small-batch roasting for quality and nuance of taste – like fine wine – no matter what the distance or size of order.
“We have 11 different coffees. The single origins are from one geographic region of a country and the roast is very specific to bring out the characteristics of that coffee,” said Lanning. “We roast each kind of bean differently. That’s what sets small roasters apart.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
Dave’s Coffee
OWNER: Dave Lanning
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Craft coffee roaster and espresso bar
LOCATION: Dave’s Coffee Roastery, 32 Friendship Street, Westerly and Dave’s Coffee Espresso Bar, 5193 Old Post Road, Charlestown
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2003
EMPLOYEES: 3 full time, 11 part time
ANNUAL SALES: $700,000 retail and wholesale

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