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John Wilt, Maiden Coffee Roasters · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:02
  All right, so it's really a pretty straightforward process.
• 0:09
  I'll say hello, welcome, welcome to Coffee people.
• 0:13
  We'll shake hands just like that.
• 0:16
  And I'll say, hey, could you tell everybody what your name is
• 0:20
  and the name of your coffee company and what what you're
• 0:23
  doing here? Yeah.
• 0:25
  Go for. It oh right now.
• 0:27
  Oh, OK, don't. People like you telling me.
• 0:56
  Yeah, my name is John Wilkes. I'm the co-owner of Main Coffee
• 1:01
  Roasters. It's me and my wife.
• 1:04
  That's our that's an example of our single origin coffee.
• 1:08
  I'd say the reason that we're here, this is the first year
• 1:10
  we're doing Coffee Fest, but basically it's to showcase these
• 1:15
  coffees that we have, which is our sort of like an exclusive
• 1:18
  offering. We have OK, every month we
• 1:20
  release a new single origin. And what we've recently been
• 1:23
  trying to do is implement a refill program with our cans.
• 1:27
  Oh, OK, so like that. Yeah.
• 1:30
  Our business is 95% of wholesale.
• 1:32
  So that's like we try to work really closely with our our
• 1:36
  partners and one of the things we're trying to implement to
• 1:39
  sort of create like a repeat customer is provide people with
• 1:44
  a pretty hefty discount. So typically this coffee would
• 1:47
  go for $24.00. If you come back and you refill
• 1:50
  your can, you get $10 off? Oh my gosh, so.
• 1:55
  Really just trying to like incentivize this type of
• 1:58
  offering because we find that the biodegradable and
• 2:03
  compostable packaging options are just not really cutting it.
• 2:06
  There's a much higher recyclability rate with this
• 2:09
  type of tin can packaging. It's about 70% compared to less
• 2:14
  than 10. So we just feel very motivated
• 2:19
  and in line with sort of offering this type of coffee the
• 2:25
  way that is packaged and. That I do want to ask about
• 2:29
  about that in particular. But before I do, what's the
• 2:33
  story? How did Maiden get started?
• 2:35
  And why the name Maiden Coffee Roasted?
• 2:38
  Yeah. So I actually purchased Maiden
• 2:40
  from the previous owners three years ago, go over three years
• 2:44
  ago and I applied for an SBA loan.
• 2:48
  I was working in restaurants at the time and looking to get out
• 2:51
  of that. Previous owners were selling I
• 2:53
  was looking to buy I had been sample roasting in like my
• 2:57
  rental garage at the time the with the roaster that my
• 3:02
  electrician friend helped me very.
• 3:04
  Least friendly, I'm sure, and. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:08
  He installed it in such a way that he could, you know,
• 3:11
  uninstall it very easily once we had to move out.
• 3:15
  Worked out. But yeah, so I, I, I purchased
• 3:18
  made it after about going through the nine month process
• 3:21
  getting an SBA loan and me and my wife have been doing it ever
• 3:25
  since. So.
• 3:26
  Was it just to get out of the restaurant or was there a reason
• 3:29
  why you thought coffee is a? Good opportunity for me.
• 3:32
  Yeah, I think the main driver at the time was getting out of the
• 3:35
  restaurant because I was in it. But I've always had an interest
• 3:39
  in coffee. I've always wanted to just move
• 3:43
  deeper into our supply chain and eventually have our own farm
• 3:46
  that we're sourcing from. Obviously that takes a lot of
• 3:50
  work, so one step at a time, but I've always had an interest in
• 3:54
  that. So I kept the name, kept a lot
• 3:58
  about the brand, but also changed a lot as well just
• 4:02
  structurally. And the idea was the name is a
• 4:06
  maiden voyage. So sort of like your first
• 4:09
  journey into specialty coffee. And where are you guys based out
• 4:12
  of? That's great park.
• 4:13
  Oh, OK, so right right across the river from where we are at
• 4:16
  Coffee Fest. Yep, that's.
• 4:17
  Fun. You were talking about the
• 4:19
  recyclability of the packaging, which I think is a Rostar brand
• 4:24
  Rostar packaging. Yep, and it's.
• 4:27
  Synergy I. Didn't know if you guys were
• 4:28
  affiliated. I didn't know how that.
• 4:31
  Rostar sponsors our show, which we were grateful for, but I
• 4:35
  wasn't. I didn't actually know that for
• 4:37
  sure. That's all I asked.
• 4:38
  I was like, oh, this could go one of two ways, but that's
• 4:42
  great that it is. Why do you care that it's
• 4:44
  recyclable? Why do you even think about
• 4:46
  sustainable packaging in that way?
• 4:48
  And what's the value? To you, Yeah, it's a good
• 4:50
  question. I think one of the biggest lacks
• 4:54
  I saw in the industry when I first came in was everybody used
• 4:57
  the word sustainable. And I still don't really know
• 5:00
  what that means. So one of our core values is
• 5:04
  simplistic sustainability. And basically it just means like
• 5:08
  how do we make this easy for people to understand?
• 5:12
  And tin can packaging just seems very obvious.
• 5:17
  When I look just a little bit into some statistics around
• 5:21
  compostable and biodegradable packaging, it just seemed like
• 5:24
  it actually could do more harm than good.
• 5:28
  And sort of by reverting back to like a more traditional way of
• 5:32
  packaging, I think you can actually alleviate a lot of the
• 5:36
  stress that some of the damage has done that's been done with
• 5:42
  coffee packaging. Sure.
• 5:44
  So again, this is the first step.
• 5:47
  Ideally we want to look to build out the logistics of this and
• 5:51
  actually getting these recycled, but it's sort of like our our
• 5:56
  trial run to see how our customers receive it, see if
• 6:00
  it's realistic to death. Well, I'm drinking one of your
• 6:02
  coffees right now, which is kind of like a honestly like a a
• 6:06
  really lovely bubble gum fruity. It's like a bulbous,
• 6:11
  encompassing flavor and smell, aroma, smell sounds bad.
• 6:16
  Aroma is what I mean. This is New York.
• 6:19
  Smells can mean a lot of different things.
• 6:22
  What's this coffee I'm drinking? And what's the story behind why
• 6:26
  this is the one you're serving here at the fest?
• 6:28
  Yeah. So that's from a farmer named
• 6:30
  Fabio Pacheco. We got connected with him
• 6:33
  through such a traders, which is a small collective in Colombia
• 6:37
  that we've been working with for since I started working with
• 6:40
  Maiden actually. And it's just every time we
• 6:44
  contract this coffee, it's always phenomenal.
• 6:48
  He's a pretty a prominent figure in his area in Calca.
• 6:53
  He actually will help educate other farmers on how to make the
• 6:56
  most out of their harvest. If there's any sort of
• 7:00
  underwrite beans, he'll show how to sort of do anaerobic
• 7:04
  fermentations, make the most out of the crop that year.
• 7:09
  And his coffee's just always phenomenal, so thought it'd be a
• 7:13
  scent not included. This year it was very generous
• 7:17
  of you, John. How can we find mating coffee
• 7:20
  roasters if there's someone out there watching looking for
• 7:23
  wholesale or for coffee? Yeah, you can go to
• 7:27
  matingcoffee.com. If you're looking for our
• 7:30
  wholesale program, you can apply online and then we also have an
• 7:34
  Instagram mating coffee. Pretty simple, nothing too
• 7:37
  complicated. Awesome SO.
• 7:39
  My last question for you today, second to last question, When
• 7:44
  you go to a coffee shop and you're not drinking your own
• 7:47
  coffee, what are you going to order?
• 7:51
  Oh man, do I know the coffee shop or do I not?
• 7:54
  You walk in off the street. Strange place.
• 7:57
  No name, but it looks like they know what they're doing.
• 7:59
  Yeah. I always get an Americano and
• 8:01
  I'd tell them to fill it halfway with the.
• 8:05
  Coffee. Oh yeah.
• 8:05
  Americano Light. Yeah, that's kind of a cool
• 8:07
  George Clooney move. I'll have an Americano.
• 8:10
  Americano. I wasn't familiar.
• 8:13
  Second most important question Favorite Keanu Reeves movie.
• 8:17
  Keanu Reeves movie? Oh man, it's probably Matrix.
• 8:22
  OK, first one. Perfect, John, thank you so
• 8:25
  much. Thank you.
• 9:10
  The.