Brothers Gourmet Coffee may not be a name you’re familiar with, but its pretty likely you are familiar with their coffee. They are the largest coffee distributors and suppliers in the United States, providing roasted gourmet coffee to other wholesalers and supermarkets across the country.

They do supply their own Brothers brand of coffee in supermarkets, but they also sell coffee under the names Country Mill, Cafe du Jour, Fairwinds, Nicholas and Hillside.

You can find their coffee in most major grocery stores, as well as any large bookstores that cater to the coffee crowd and all of their coffee is made with Arabica beans, though most are not region-specific. Beans may be from any number of places such as Brazil, Mexico, Kenya or Costa Rica.

Just have a look at all of the virtues they boast of in a recent press release:

A passion for coffee
Over three million cups of Brothers gourmet coffees are enjoyed each day in the United States. That’s about 15 million pounds of the highest quality coffee beans found on the planet. Close to 50 percent of U.S. supermarket shoppers can buy our coffees from their neighborhood grocer, making us the largest supplier in the U.S. grocery channel. We’re also the largest supplier of gourmet coffee to U.S. military commissaries and a major supplier to the rapidly expanding specialty wholesale market.

We do coffee-that’s all we do. As the nation’s leading branded wholesale supplier of gourmet coffees, we’ve set an unmatched standard of excellence that drives every decision we make. It’s a simple formula. We choose the finest arabica beans in the world, roast them to perfection, and ship them promptly to guarantee freshness.

The public is catching on. Gourmet coffee consumption has grown steadily over the past 10 years. By the end of the decade, about half of all coffee sold is expected to be gourmet coffee, translating into total market sales of more than $3 billion. Market analysts predict continued rapid growth in the gourmet coffee market well into the next century. These predictions are based on historic fact, not fad.

With so much opportunity for growth, Brothers Gourmet Coffees fully intends to increase market share by building brand identity for our principal Brothers, Fairwinds, and Hillside brands, distinguishing Brothers through innovative products and programs, and focusing attention on top line growth. And as a leader in the gourmet coffee category, we’ll continue our strong tradition of quality, freshness, and product perfection.

Brothers Gourmet Coffees, Inc. is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, and operates a roasting and packaging facility in Houston, Texas. We are a publicly-traded company listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol BEAN.

We’re So Focused on Gourmet Coffee, Our Customers Can Taste It
About one-third of all adults in the U.S. now drink gourmet coffee, and that figure is forecast to grow to 50 percent by the year 2000. It’s not far-fetched. Gourmet coffee consumption is up 44 percent over 1994 and growing rapidly each year. In terms of daily consumption, drinking gourmet coffee is becoming more of a habit than a once-in-a-while treat.

Our marketing and sales effort is driven by one simple goal: To lead the nation in gourmet coffee products brewed at home. To achieve this, we’ve initiated a five-point Channel Development Strategy targeted at grocers, national accounts, specialty food and department stores, mail order sales, and select food service outlets. Brothers’ growth strategy hinges on supporting long-term sales through channel diversification and brand development.

While each channel presents enormous opportunity for growth, supermarkets continue to represent the primary source of our gourmet coffee sales. In fact, about 90 percent of our current business is through the grocery channel. We worked closely with grocers in 1996 to provide product innovations designed to boost sales. This included our turnkey Fresh Brew Program, which provides supermarkets and specialty stores the opportunity to serve fresh-brewed Brothers gourmet coffee to their customers. We also launched the innovative 1.75 oz. mini-can and the 8 oz. reclosable brick pack. None of our national competitors offers either of these unique products.

Product innovation is important to Brothers. We know what our customers want because we understand that trends are a lot more than numbers. For example, the popularity of gourmet coffee is spreading eastward geographically, and consumption of unflavored estate or blend coffees is rising. More and more consumers are becoming discriminating coffee drinkers.

This is where building brand identity comes in. Each of our brands speaks to a different key market segment, while providing our loyal customers with the roasts they prefer. Our super-premium Fairwinds brand is truly dedicated to the gourmet and channeled primarily through specialty retailers. The Brothers brand, featuring 75 varieties, is a gourmet-quality premium coffee channeled through supermarkets. Budget-conscious consumers can enjoy our Hillside brand-a high-quality “everyday-low-price” gourmet coffee with 20 varieties.

To build brand identity, we completely updated our Brothers brand product packaging in 1996, featuring bolder colors in jewel tones. A label customized to each type of coffee more clearly illustrates the differences between the coffees and helps customers distinguish between coffee types. The same careful consideration in package design is currently being applied to the Fairwinds brand. Bold new upscale packaging now reinforces the super-premium image.

We could not have reached the top of the wholesale gourmet coffee market without superior distribution. In 1996, we consolidated our roasting and packaging facilities in Houston, Texas, which is centrally located for U.S. product distribution, close to several ports for Central and South American coffee importation, and equidistant to each coast for Indonesian and African coffee shipments.

Consolidation of plant operations has allowed us to address such vital issues as excess capacity and administrative costs. We’re pleased with the resulting wide range of operational and distribution improvements, including increased customer service, improved inventory management and product quality control, enhanced ability to fill customer orders with better product rotation, and reduced logistical complications.

From Houston, Brothers provides its products to customers in three primary ways. The first, and most common, is through direct store delivery using our own trucks and a network of 30 distribution centers throughout the United States. Direct store deliveries are normally made to our grocery store customers. We also distribute our products directly to large customer warehouses and through specialty and gourmet food distributors.

All three venues ensure that our products arrive fresh and in good time. We work closely with each of our customers to determine the precise venue, or combination of venues, that best fits their needs.

Brothers Is Breaking New Ground
After a year of refocusing Brothers Gourmet Coffees back to its core strength-the wholesale gourmet coffee business-we’re balanced for stable growth. The management team who designed and implemented the disposition and restructuring plans is committed to making an impact on our business’ top line. It’s time to capitalize on our strengths in product innovation, quality, and distribution.

In 1996, we followed a clear-cut program toward increased profitability. We improved our cash flow by consolidating operations and divesting unprofitable ventures. We became leaner and more flexible, allowing us to react more quickly to customer requirements and market changes. And as we look to the future, we’ll continue to search aggressively for ways to reduce operational costs without sacrificing product quality.

Brothers Gourmet Coffees has adopted a six-point Gold Quality Standard that touches every aspect of our business. We are committed to:

The best in green coffee bean sourcing
Testing each coffee bean lot to ensure that it meets the highest standards of aroma and flavor
Excellence in bean processing for visual appearance, consistency, and flavor
Excellence in package design to assure customers they are getting superior quality products
Maximizing the freshness of our coffees by enhancing merchandising rotation
Confirming our superior quality through a detailed program of random sampling of finished goods
We do coffee-that’s all we do. Our success in 1997 will come from executing the business strategy we set in 1996 and continuing to improve operations. Our leadership role in the gourmet coffee category comes from the reality of our product quality and innovations and our dedication to the wholesale gourmet coffee business.

Tags: Brothers, Brothers Gourmet Coffee

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