Bean Box Brings Specialty Coffee To Walmart

Bean Box watched as consumers over time shifted their coffee preferences more toward specialty coffee. Then, the company – which calls itself “your all-access pass to the world’s best artisan coffee at home” – teamed with Walmart to make specialty coffee accessible in more than just urban hotspots and local cafes. Walmart stores throughout the U.S. are now carrying Bean Box's Coffeegram, a line of grab-and-brew coffees that are sourced from more than 50 roasters across the country. The product is packaged in colorful single-serve boxes with a cut-out window so consumers can easily see the coffee packet inside. Walmart sells a four-count Coffeegram mix, comprising two U.S. Road Coffee Tour tasting bags and two World Coffee Tour tasting bags, relative to a store's geographical location. Bean Box will promote its partnership with Walmart through email marketing, organic social and PR, with all emails and social amplification directing customers to visit Walmart stores to purchase Coffeegram. This is Bean Box’s first entrance into big box retail and its first national rollout. Sales previously were exclusively direct-to-consumer through its website. Every Coffeegram includes a 1.8-ounce tasting bag, tasting notes and brewing tips, and the coffees are hand-selected by Bean Box’s expert coffee curation team. Later this year, the company will be offering limited-edition holiday products at Walmart and Walmart.com, including its 6 Merry Mornings coffee collection and Stocking Stuffer Coffeegram. Also available on BeanBox.com and Amazon will be a 12 Mornings of Coffee Advent Calendar, inspired by a holiday storybook, in tasting formats. The company's partnership with Walmart came as a result of Bean Box’s PR efforts around its Advent Calendar, which launched for the holidays last year, Ryan Fritzky, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Bean Box, told the Path to Purchase Institute. “A Walmart buyer who oversees coffee nationally saw all the buzz around the unique coffee gift experience and reached out to us about bringing Bean Box to more customers nationwide through retail,” Fritzky said. "We had been seeing in our business that people have shifted their coffee preferences toward more specialty coffee, and it turns out, Walmart had been seeing it in their stores as well." A problem with specialty coffee is that its availability is often limited to urban hotspots and a fragmented set of local cafes across the country, Fritzky said. "We want to make the world’s best specialty coffee accessible to everyone with Bean Box, and Walmart’s centrality to neighborhoods nationwide allows us both to accomplish our goals of bringing a better morning cup to everyone. Walmart was looking for a brand that could also bring insight into trends within customers’ coffee buying and consumption habits, and we were able to fill that gap with the data we have from our direct-to-consumer model and core coffee community." His advice for other brands looking to break into Walmart is to home in on the product offerings and what makes them unique compared to similar brands in the market. “Get new products into the hands of your target consumer early so you can get their reaction,” Fritzky said. “This customer feedback is crucial to have in your conversations with retailers.” Companies also need to be forward-thinking, he advised. “Breaking into big-box retail takes time. Our partnership with Walmart has been almost a year in the making. You have to be thinking of the products you want to offer six to nine months from now."

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