A Cold Brew in the Corridor coffee dispenser and display at the headquarters of Eco Lips in Cedar Rapids, where employees received free cold-brew coffee as part of a trial. PHOTO DAVE DEWITTE
By Dave DeWitte
dave@corridorbusiness.com
The cold-brewed coffee boom will soon be making its way to Corridor break rooms and cafeterias, thanks to a pioneering joint venture with roots in Cedar Rapids’ flood recovery.
Cold Brew in the Corridor has begun offering refrigerated keg dispensing systems from Rapids Wholesale Equipment Company in Marion that dispense cold-brewed coffee from Brewhemia in Cedar Rapids.
Cold-brewed coffee is the fastest-growing trend in the coffee industry. Smoother and less bitter than regular iced coffee, it’s fueling sales growth at national chains such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, and arriving on grocery store shelves in bottled form. It’s largely absent from the office, however, which drew notice at Rapids Wholesale.
The company sells and leases equipment for dispensing beer, along with other restaurant equipment, throughout much of the United States. Long ago, founder Harry Ribble secured the first patent for a direct dispensing system for kegged beer, and the company continues to offer kits for making “kegerators,” popular for dispensing draft beer cheaply.
In recent years, Rapids Wholesale has begun to accelerate its emphasis on innovation through employee teams that research and propose new opportunities.
Using its equipment to dispense cold coffee rather than cold beer was one of the ideas that floated to the top, according to Paul Adams, a Rapids Wholesale spokesman. The company had developed a dispensing system for cold coffee that seemed to perform well, and wanted to see how it would be received in an office setting. It began a search for a beverage partner with experience providing quality cold-brew coffee.
The search didn’t take long. During the flood evacuation of September 2016, Rapids Wholesale had provided Brewhemia with a temporary storage location for some of its equipment. After the flood threat passed, Rapids Wholesale employees volunteered to help Brewhemia and other food service businesses in the evacuation zone get their equipment set back up and ready for reopening.
Brewhemia has a strong and growing clientele for its cold-brew coffee, made from beans roasted at Ross Street Roasting in Tama.
“We decided to work with them to see if the dispenser we’re coming up with makes sense,” Mr. Adams said. “It’s a great place to introduce this concept – see if it has legs.”
Brewhemia owner Steve Shriver, who has started several businesses and product lines, jumped at the opportunity. He said his shop had already sold several kegs of cold-brew coffee to bars, but they tended to use their own equipment to serve it.
Brewhemia began testing out the Rapids Wholesale dispensing system at Mr. Shriver’s other business, Eco Lips, and quickly saw it as a way to expand cold-brew coffee sales by making it more convenient.
“We’re making it [cold-brew coffee] more available to people by offering a tap system like a kegerator,” said Mr. Shriver, the CBJ’s 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year. “It looks like a beer tap, with cold-brewed coffee in one tap, and nitro cold brew in the other.”
Customers can get nitro cold brew – coffee infused with nitrogen to give it a creamier feel – and regular cold brew in a single kegerator, or just one kind. They can also set up their own delivery schedule.
The arrangement may offer prices that are a little lower than coffee houses hcarge, although not by much. Cold Brew in the Corridor’s standard product sells for $55 for a 2.5-gallon keg or $85 for a 5-gallon keg – the equivalent of about 80 8-ounce servings. Nitro cold-brew is a little higher, at $65 for a 2.5-gallon keg and $95 for a 5-gallon keg. The refrigerated coffee stays fresh for about a month.
The cost includes delivery of the coffee and servicing of the kegerator. Customers can buy their own kegerator system or lease it for $80-90 per month, depending on the number of taps.
Brian Gumm of Ross Street Roasting has been working to find the right roast for the cold-brewed product. He said that the company’s standard dark roast blend, known as Bohemian Gothic, has offered better results than the medium-roast Papua New Guinea blend it had been using.
Mr. Gumm is no small supporter of the cold brew movement. He said the trend has boosted coffee sales during the warm weather months, and that its smooth taste appeals to “a lot of people who don’t consider themselves coffee fanciers.” It even appeals to people who’ve dropped their coffee habit because of stomach problems, because it is less acidic and easier on sensitive stomachs.
“This isn’t a replacement product – it’s a supplement product,” Mr. Gumm said.
For roasters like his Ross Street Roasting, it could also prove a boon, he noted, because the cold-brewing process requires more beans than regular coffee.
Mr. Adams sees the potential for the coffee dispensing system to reach beyond office users to places like college bookstores and hotel breakfast bars, and he thinks Brewhemia’s team will find plenty of opportunities.
“They’re go-getters, that’s for sure,” he said.
If the concept proves itself in the Corridor, Mr. Adams said Rapids Wholesale expects to expand to larger metro markets such as St. Louis and Minneapolis, partnering with other coffee suppliers in those areas on a similar basis.
