We're taking Blanchard's on the road!
Step one has been finding some out-of-towners who were willing to give Blanchard's Coffee a shot. We've found some great folks like Para Coffee in Charlottesville, VA, The Java Shack in Arlington, VA, and Waveriders in Nags Head, NC to start representing our brand and now, we're heading to the Shenandoah Valley for a huge presentation in front of hundreds of folks eager to learn about Blanchard's.
We put together this little video to go along with part of our talk and thought it'd be nice to share it with al of you. Enjoy!
Showing posts with label local. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local. Show all posts
Friday, July 8, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Coffee & Technology
We don't use a ton of cutting edge technology when producing fresh Blanchard's coffee for you; it really comes down to fire and air. We are, however, very eager to find cool new ways to do what we love to do the most: talk to anyone and everyone about our great, fresh roasted coffee.
We really like the idea of using tons of different types of media to reach folks who might want to learn more about our coffees or follow what we're doing in the social media worlds of Facebook, Twitter & more. With that in mind, we're starting to play with QR Codes.
Here is an example of the first one we created:
Here's how it works: If you have a smartphone you can download a free app that will read bar codes and QR codes; I personally like ShopSavvy because it is also an interactive shopping tool that helps me find the lowest prices on items I scan. Once you have the app you simply scan this code and it redirects you to a page we associate with the code. This one, as you'll see when you scan it, takes you to a generic page we created that allows you to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, view a short video of our roaster in action and visit our website.
Eventually you'll start to see these on coffee bags and signage in all the places you find our coffee. Each type of coffee will have its own code that will tell you about the coffee you've chosen, give you ways to interact with us and that product like tasting notes or brewing tips, and perhaps offer special deals with the product and the location you've scanned it. It is sort of like a coffee education adventure!
Keep you eye out for codes popping up anywhere you find Blanchard's coffee, and happy scanning!
We really like the idea of using tons of different types of media to reach folks who might want to learn more about our coffees or follow what we're doing in the social media worlds of Facebook, Twitter & more. With that in mind, we're starting to play with QR Codes.
Here is an example of the first one we created:
Here's how it works: If you have a smartphone you can download a free app that will read bar codes and QR codes; I personally like ShopSavvy because it is also an interactive shopping tool that helps me find the lowest prices on items I scan. Once you have the app you simply scan this code and it redirects you to a page we associate with the code. This one, as you'll see when you scan it, takes you to a generic page we created that allows you to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, view a short video of our roaster in action and visit our website.
Eventually you'll start to see these on coffee bags and signage in all the places you find our coffee. Each type of coffee will have its own code that will tell you about the coffee you've chosen, give you ways to interact with us and that product like tasting notes or brewing tips, and perhaps offer special deals with the product and the location you've scanned it. It is sort of like a coffee education adventure!
Keep you eye out for codes popping up anywhere you find Blanchard's coffee, and happy scanning!
Monday, February 7, 2011
Coffee Tip::Getting Green
At Blanchard's Coffee Co. we pride ourselves in being fairly kind to the environment even though our daily roasting does crank out some smoke on to Forest Hill Avenue. Is that causing harm? Likely a little bit but we work hard to make up for that in other ways. People say the movement towards greening businesses is a toothless fad that doesn't hold a lot of true meaning or value; this may be true for oil giants and manufacturing companies but in small business a little bit of effort can go a long way. We're already doing a lot but we can do a lot more.
Current Efforts
We recycle everything we can. As much as we'd love to be a paperless business, we end up having to print out orders to keep everything straight, so we make sure those print-outs get to a recycling facility.
We are huge proponents of the re-use strategy; here are some things we currently re-use until they're completely destroyed: boxes, coffee bags, cups, java jackets and containers of all sorts.
We also love to repurpose a lot of our waste. Burlap bags that are used to ship green coffee, make excellent display material for many of our clients who creatively merchandise our products. We also end up with a lot of bio-mass from roasting and brewing coffee which we offer for free to home gardeners and farmers.
Plans to do Better
Our first order of business is to switch all of our disposable paper products to Green Duck Compostables so our paper footprint isn't as extensive.
One of our biggest initiatives this year is the idea of bringing together local businesses, crafts-people and community members to promote and support local happenings and causes. This is sort of a far reaching project that includes a ton of different avenues. For example, we will be sponsoring and hosting events such as our upcoming Community Night in the Roastery that brings folks into the Blanchard's roastery for a fun evening with coffee, other beverages, food and a silent auction featuring local crafts-people benefiting a local organization. We are also ramping up for a great 2011 RVA Barista Jam season beginning with our first event on 23 February 2011 at Ellwood's Cafe from 6:00-8:00pm. This year we're kicking up the event with raffle prizes and a slightly different format but it still promises to be great coffee-social fun!
We're also working on creative ways to bring the coffee community of Richmond together to support more sustainable business practices. Collectively, all of the coffee businesses in town put a lot of coffee related bio-mass in the garbage. At the same time, many local farmers are paying for similar bio-mass to aerate their soil or feed their composts. We aim to organize as many coffee houses and roasters in town as possible to set their bio-waste aside to be picked up and donated to local farmers. Heck, if we're lucky we might even get a few vegetables out of the deal!
We're probably just at the tip of the iceberg of what we could do to make our operation more sustainable and green, so our ears and eyes are always open to ideas and suggestions to make our community and our world a little better.
Current Efforts
We recycle everything we can. As much as we'd love to be a paperless business, we end up having to print out orders to keep everything straight, so we make sure those print-outs get to a recycling facility.
We are huge proponents of the re-use strategy; here are some things we currently re-use until they're completely destroyed: boxes, coffee bags, cups, java jackets and containers of all sorts.
We also love to repurpose a lot of our waste. Burlap bags that are used to ship green coffee, make excellent display material for many of our clients who creatively merchandise our products. We also end up with a lot of bio-mass from roasting and brewing coffee which we offer for free to home gardeners and farmers.
Plans to do Better
Our first order of business is to switch all of our disposable paper products to Green Duck Compostables so our paper footprint isn't as extensive.
One of our biggest initiatives this year is the idea of bringing together local businesses, crafts-people and community members to promote and support local happenings and causes. This is sort of a far reaching project that includes a ton of different avenues. For example, we will be sponsoring and hosting events such as our upcoming Community Night in the Roastery that brings folks into the Blanchard's roastery for a fun evening with coffee, other beverages, food and a silent auction featuring local crafts-people benefiting a local organization. We are also ramping up for a great 2011 RVA Barista Jam season beginning with our first event on 23 February 2011 at Ellwood's Cafe from 6:00-8:00pm. This year we're kicking up the event with raffle prizes and a slightly different format but it still promises to be great coffee-social fun!
We're also working on creative ways to bring the coffee community of Richmond together to support more sustainable business practices. Collectively, all of the coffee businesses in town put a lot of coffee related bio-mass in the garbage. At the same time, many local farmers are paying for similar bio-mass to aerate their soil or feed their composts. We aim to organize as many coffee houses and roasters in town as possible to set their bio-waste aside to be picked up and donated to local farmers. Heck, if we're lucky we might even get a few vegetables out of the deal!
We're probably just at the tip of the iceberg of what we could do to make our operation more sustainable and green, so our ears and eyes are always open to ideas and suggestions to make our community and our world a little better.
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