Fresh Cup, August 2004
The Gourmet Grocery Gambit
Getting Your Coffee into the Gourmet Aisle
By Teri Cettina
Whether customers are looking for an Indian curry sauce, a box of hand-dipped chocolates, a private-reserve wine or a bag of freshly roasted specialty coffee, they know they’ll find it at A Southern Season.
This gourmet foods emporium, which anchors a small retail mall in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is perhaps one of the largest upscale markets in the country. At almost 60,000 square feet, it is a sensuous, colorful playground for food-o-philes and gourmet beverage drinkers. Specialty ingredients, exquisite prepared foods, deli meats and cheeses, wine and beer, flowers, and a bakery share space with a gourmet restaurant and cooking school.
Not surprisingly, A Southern Season’s coffee and tea bar is also a wonderland, with more than 100 different bulk coffee offerings, a dozen hand-picked, prepackaged coffees, 85 fine teas sold by the ounce from tins, 90 mid-priced loose teas and dozens of prepackaged brands.
Looking at the store today, it’s hard to believe that A Southern Season actually started life in 1975 as a small specialty coffee roaster. Back then, owner Michael Cooper Barefoot ran the tiny operation alone. But as he learned more about his customers’ culinary passions—and his own—Barefoot began adding more and more products alongside his java offerings.
The enormously successful company now employs more than 250 people, provides cooking classes staffed by visiting celebrity chefs, and offers a catalog and Web site. Most important, the store regularly attracts thousands of loyal customers and curious visitors—all of whom trust the market’s reputation for gathering the freshest and most unique products on the planet.
Needless to say, getting A Southern Season to carry your coffee or tea isn’t a piece of cake. “I’m a cherry-picker, and I’m proud of it,” says Caroline Cahan, A Southern Season’s coffee and tea buyer. “If I hear of a little roaster that is putting out an amazing coffee, I want to try it. At the same time, I’m not apt to add a new coffee or tea to my offerings unless it really knocks me out.”
Cahan regularly sleuths coffee, tea and specialty food shows looking for great products and — perhaps more important — great people with whom she can build solid business relationships. A few of her coffee and tea suppliers have been with her since she joined A Southern Seasons 12 years ago.
“I like to work with suppliers who are ready to provide me with the same top-quality customer service that we provide our market customers,” she says. “If I call them and say, ‘Help! A dozen busloads of tourists just descended on me and I’m out of a certain coffee blend!’ they need to have solutions for me.”
Full article text available upon request.
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