februarymarch2024 - 34

(Right:) Don Welch and
Steve Williams erecting
the sign at their first coffee
shop in 1999.
(Far right:) In the early
days, Don Welch and Steve
Williams working the local
trade shows for business
while Dan serviced
customers out in the field.
Everybody causes a flood and
everybody gets electrocuted at one
point in their career, " he added with
a laugh.
From the very beginning,
service has been one of the top
values at the company and one
thing Dan has striven to continue
since taking the helm in 2012.
In fact, he aims to meet service
requests within an hour. " Service is
everything, " he said.
Of the 16 employees now at
World Cup Coffee, 25% are service
technicians. The company operates
six routes, going on seven. " We just
got an account in Bend, 160 miles
away, that is broadening our reach
and service capabilities, " said Dan.
" We have always prided ourselves
with our service capabilities, so
we have expectations for how we
respond to maintenance requests,
and this is a new challenge that we
are welcoming. "
The team's deep commitment
to service stems from the desire to
meet customers' needs and wants
and to sell a quality product. And as
they learned early on, being in such
a competitive market, they weren't
afraid to try new things and pivot if
something wasn't working. " Back in
the day, we did vending, " Dan said.
" But [vending] was very challenging,
and we got away from that, gladly. "
In 1990, they decided they wanted
to focus solely on OCS. " And we
wanted to do it better than anybody
else, " he added.
World Cup's coffee retail stores boost OCS exposure
It's not often that an OCS operator also owns brick-and-mortar retail
stores, but that was the case when World Cup Coffee opened its first
coffee shop in 1999. Dan went through espresso training, and they
eventually ended up with four retail locations over 20 years.
" Retail really helped us get a public face to the coffee, " said Dan. " We got
good local press for the quality of our coffee, and folks in the office would
recognize our coffee because they had visited one of our retail locations.
It also helped because people in Portland really like to support local. "
However, the COVID-19 pandemic collapsed World Cup Coffee's retail
business, like many others. Rather than rebuild, Dan and his team
focused their efforts and attention on areas in which he has seen better
growth. " Retail operations have changed where you really have to have
a food element, and I don't want to be a cafe or a sit-down restaurant, "
he said. " We are doing so well with OCS - better than ever - and with
the growth of micro markets and pantry business there really isn't an
incentive to move back to retail. "
INNOVATION KEEPS THE
WHEELS TURNING
In order to provide the best cup of
coffee to their customers, Don, Dan
and Steve decided to begin roasting
their own coffee in the early 1990s.
" We were always thinking of ways
we could improve the company, "
said Dan. " People were demanding
higher quality coffee, and it was a
trend we realized was not going
away. Good coffee and good service
breed more business, and that's what
we wanted to continue. "
They attended the 1995 Specialty
Coffee Association of America
trade show and purchased roasting
equipment. Dan began going to
classes to learn how to roast and
buy green coffee. Soon, they were
fashioning their own blends. Today,
their coffee is roasted fresh by Chris
Phillips, their dedicated roaster,
the day before it's delivered to
customers. The World Cup Blend
and Vienna dark roast are their
best-selling coffees.
Roasting its own beans certainly
is one big way World Cup Coffee
stands out among the competition.
" If you're a roaster, you can walk the
talk, " said Dan.
But it's not just the high-quality
roast that resonates with customers
- it's World Cup Coffee's knowledge
on the best ways to serve coffee, too.
When airpot brewers first came out,
Dan noticed a functional change in
34 Automatic Merchandiser * February/March 2024
februarymarch2024

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