Once a food becomes a staple, a fortified version isn't far behind. The trend started with salt back in the 1930s and has gained strength from there. Take a stroll down the aisles at any grocery store these days and you're sure to find things like fortified bread, milk and water.
Now Michael Sweeney and partner Joell Doneker want to push this trend to new caffeinated heights by fortifying the world's second-most traded commodity: coffee. Their Houston-based Spava Coffee Company, launched in 2005, aims to bag the beans in a crowded industry dominated by the likes of Starbucks, Carribou Coffee and a myriad of other java joints.
The big question--and one common to many small businesses--is whether to manufacture the beans themselves, or to license the fortifying technology. (For more on this topic, see "Should You License Or Produce Your Invention?")
Fortified coffee, while not entirely new, has yet to catch fire in great part because of the limitations of current technology. Other small outfits such as Caffe Sanora and Javalution have made inroads at large grocers like Wild Oats, but their treating processes are simple derivatives of common flavoring methods, such as tumbling the dry beans in a mixture or saturating them in a solution.
The problem with these methods: Fortification levels vary from bean to bean and, in some cases, the process must be applied at the roasting site (making it not commercially scalable for licensing purposes). Worse, soaking the beans shortens their shelf life: The more moisture in food, the faster it goes stale.
Sweeney's patent-pending process, on the other hand, uses something called "acid-salt chemistry" which, he claims, achieves more uniform and dependable results. Sweeney should know something about chemistry: Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he worked as a chemist at Nalco Chemical Company (now part of Exxon).
To understand Spava's technique, consider that coffee beans contain more than 30 acids, and each acid has its own unique characteristics. The trick: using the right solution as a vehicle to shepherd the fortifying elements through bean cell membranes, allowing them to attach uniformly to the beans' acids, without affecting the taste of the bean. Sweeney's process, which can be done anywhere, takes between six and eight minutes--quick enough to avoid adding too much moisture, and thus increasing the beans' shelf life.
Spava's sales pitch is akin to selling vitamins. Each of its five bean varieties targets a different health concern: "Flexiblity" beans aim to boost joint strength using chrondroitin sulfate, while "Clarity" ones use Ginko Biloba to spark mental alertness (without too many jitters). And the coffee tastes pretty good too.
Like Caffe Sanora and Javalution, Spava sells packaged coffee. But it also licenses its liquid fortifying solution to other producers--a game Sweeney would rather play for the long run.
"We've already had [licensing] success with some European medium-sized roasters, and have been in discussions with specialty roasters in Central America and Japan," says Sweeney.
Spava sells the fortifying liquid on a per-pound basis and gets 8% of the wholesale price of the beans. Spava's fortifying liquid, depending on the exact mixture, sells between 11 and 13 cents per pound--similar to the 10 to 15 cents that roasters currently pay for flavorings like hazelnut and vanilla. The downside: Only a dab will do. Fifty pounds of coffee requires just a pound and a half of fortifying liquid.
Don't expect to see Spava at Wal Mart or Safeway anytime soon. But Sweeney has managed to break onto the shelves of some 300 specialty food stores. And as of last week, negotiations are also under way with Whole Foods, says Doneker.
If all goes well with coffee, Sweeney hopes to expand into corn. "We're a company founded on a certain set of values," he says. "Fortified staple foods are good for people. If we can apply this technology to foods like corn, we can help stop hunger around the world."
Next in line fortified beer? hmmm BC
