Growing Your Company Right Means Sticking To Your Values With Jeremy Gursey, President of Coffee Manufactory
Jeremy Gursey is the President of Coffee Manufactory, a brand that’s goal is to make better coffee and make coffee better. His objective is to build a global brand that strives to perfect coffee roasting, tea production, and preparation. For several years, Jeremy served as the personal coffee chef for Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. He also prepared coffee and tea for the Seinfeld cast, where Larry David nicknamed him "Mocha Joe" and became the inspiration for the character on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Jeremy Gursey illuminates everything a great cup of coffee entails
The toll the pandemic took on Coffee Manufactory and Tartine Bakery
What did Jeremy do to help rescue the company from its pandemic-induced business doldrums?
The two types of coffee drinkers
Jeremy discusses the brand's sustainability efforts
Why coffee from smaller farms is vital to Coffee Manufactory
How the brand leverages being a great corporate citizen
What differentiates Coffee Manufactory in the marketplace?
Jeremy describes his path to becoming a coffee chef for celebrities
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Sustainability can have primary and secondary missions, but one is not more important than the other for businesses. Foremost, maintaining profitability is essential to advance sustainability ideals. But its overriding goal is to minimize the use of nonrenewable natural resources. When both objectives are met, brands can contribute to the planet's health and ecological balance.
As the President of Coffee Manufactory, he says sustainability is not only an essential company core value, it’s the foundational principle. The brand is built upon relationships with owners of small coffee farms where team members help work alongside farmers to bring in the crop. The farmers determine, from a sustainability perspective, the price of the coffee crop. Coffee Manufactory pays them more than that amount, which is reinvested in improving the local community.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni welcomes Jeremy Gursey, President of Coffee Manufactory, to discuss the importance of adhering to your core values when growing your brand. Jeremy shares how his company’s principles are the business' pillars and have been integral to its growth. He also discusses his time as a coffee chef to Tom Cruise and the cast of Seinfeld, describes what makes a great cup of coffee, and points out what separates Coffee Manufactory from its competitors.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
This episode’s sponsor:
Today’s episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we create meaningful moments of brand trust and influence how people interact and engage with brands.
There is a science behind tapping into your audiences’ desires and motivation. After all, if you’re not changing your audiences’ behaviors, you can’t truly unlock all of your brand’s potential.
The proven models and methods of Behavior Design is the strategic foundation for your brands’ success.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:02
This is From Persona to Personal podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. Off Madison Ave creates meaningful moments of brand trust and influences how people interact and engage with brands. The science behind their approach taps into your audience's motivations and desires. After all, if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you can't truly unlock all of your brand's potential. Now, let's get started with the show.
Roger Hurni 0:34
Hello, everyone, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal where I get to use my expertise in consumer behavior modification to engage with top business leaders propelling their brands forward. Before I get to today's guest, this episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, We use behavioral science to create meaningful moments of brand trust, which influences how people interact and engage with companies. Our behavioral approach taps in your audience's motivation and prompts them to shift behavior. And if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you truly can unlock all of your brand's potential. These proven behavioral models and methods are the strategic foundation for your brand success. Visit offmadisonave.com to learn more. Now, without further ado, I am super excited to have with me, Jeremy Gursey. Jeremy started serving his artists and coffee and tea creations to celebrities on television film sets when he founded Jager C Corp for coffee and e in 1993. Interactions with Larry David behind the scenes on this TV show Seinfeld led him to being the inspiration for the character Mocha Joe on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Soon after he was traveling the world as a personal coffee shop to some of Hollywood's lead out these might be some people you might have heard of like Cameron Diaz and Steven Spielberg and some guy named Tom Cruise likes to fly jets. Well, Jeremy went on to build his first roastery geared toward providing coffee for luxury hotels and restaurants. A chance meeting with a billion dollar hospitality Hotel Group led to the merger with Tartine Bakery to oversee the combined copy company. Coffee Manufactory. So Jeremy, welcome to the show.
Jeremy Gursey 2:20
Thank you. Pleasure to be here
Roger Hurni 2:22
What did I screw up there anything I get wrong or needs to be corrected?
Jeremy Gursey 2:26
I think just Spielberg’s name.
Roger Hurni 2:30
Steven Spielberg did not say Correct. Okay. Yeah, we're now he started off mirror, about five or six miles from where I live. Now. You're making films it this place that used to be called Chris Towne mall, which is now Spectrum Mall or might not even be there anymore. So yeah, he's an Arizona boy. So I should get that, right. So you have this wonderful career in this amazing beverage that so many people enjoy? I'm kind of curious as to what, what are the qualities of a great cup of coffee?
Jeremy Gursey 3:10
Oh, that's a great question. There's actually a lot of them quite a bit. One is, coffee from different regions obviously have a different taste. But what makes an incredible Well, the the other thing too, is you can make, you can roast create the most incredible coffee, there's a million ways to mess it up. So that's the other thought process on it. But what I mean by that is, when brewing coffee, you need to have filtered water, if it's to filter, then it doesn't brew as well. It doesn't bind with the coffee, let's say if you use distilled water, for instance, terrible cup of coffee. So there's factors like that. But what makes an incredible cup of coffee, I think is it's subjective taste. But and my tastes are always changing as well. And I do change it up regularly. But I think just really buying a high quality, great tasting coffee that's consistent in taste as another factor. And I tend to buy from small farm producers. So based on relationships, and listen, there's big farm producers that could be in the same region, same growing conditions, some more drop, there's some farmer what's the passion behind the product that they're putting out and when it's small like that, it's I think that adds a little extra value to it as well.
Roger Hurni 4:35
Nice. Well, that it really does have anything to do with consumer behavior of this show. That was just me personally wanting to know what makes a great cup of coffee. Yeah, well,
Jeremy Gursey 4:46
you know, if taste is subjective, there's two types of coffee drinkers we find there's light, which is root for complex, what others might categorize as acidic and fruit forward. When there's basically darker roast coffees, which is probably a wider audience, not, you know, it's a different type of palate, but it's what a lot of people grew up on and what they know. But we've, when we're going out there, there's two types of drinkers. So we actually offer something for everybody, where some people focus on why some people single origins, some on blends, some on darker riffs. So we have something in every category for our customer, because we felt it was a great way to like reach a wider audience.
Roger Hurni 5:32
Does anyone ever compare it to to winemaking, because I feel like the qualities of of choosing grapes, you know, processing them the way you roast coffee, I feel like there's a lot of parallels there.
Jeremy Gursey 5:46
They're done. And it's funny because wine producers and like wineries, they often compare it as well, when I when I'll go wine tasting, you know, we'll talk about coffee and, and the different compounds and flavors. And it's very comparable, actually.
Roger Hurni 6:05
Sorry. Well, let's get to the real questions now. Because now that is, now my personal growth is over with, we can move on to the more tangible sorts of things. The combination of your coffee company with Tartine happened right at the beginning of the pandemic, if I'm not, I'm not wrong. So I had this multi part question. Why then? And what were the challenges you had to overcome because of the pandemic?
Jeremy Gursey 6:31
Well, that's a that's a great question, to be 100% honest with you. It actually started before the pandemic. But what happened is during that process, the pandemic hit. And that's when everything went 360 or 180, maybe I should say. And that's when we we were actually shut down in the state of Nevada roastery, because we serviced hotels and restaurants, and they will tell us, we're shut down. So we'll run that and March to July of 2020, we were completely shut down, we only had online sales are teen on the other hand, through the coffee manufactory brand lost at that time about 90% of their business during the pandemic, because of the closure factor. And because they were focused heavily on pantry Service Office or Office buildings, specifically tech companies, which went to the remote work from home procedure immediately, and it really hasn't come back from that. So when I came aboard, it was a matter of we had to pivot 180 degrees and refocus because where the bulk of our business was coming from no longer existed. And so for me, I sat I've studied the market, I focus. I basically wrote a roadmap and or Bible, so to say I wrote where the company was at one time, where it currently was, and then where I wanted it to go. And then I wrote it, how to go there. And step by step. It's literally a 58 page proposal from start to finish. But it was if people remember before there was Garmin, and navigation, there was Thomas guide. Right at you was one thing, you flip to page 3611 E. And then you would go to there. And that's basically what I did. I went and created a roadmap, and then I follow the map. So what what was a real pushback for us was we had a lot of stuff in the fire. And when omec Ron hit the second wave of COVID, it wiped out the buying offices of grocery stores, hotel, food and beverage was wiped out with people out for weeks and months at a time because of Omen Braun, that was December of was that December of 2021, I think was that that's about right. Yeah, when Omicron hit and that was we had I mean, because we had so many we had put so much stuff in action now is a real setback. But we we bided our time and wait it out, some people never return to their jobs, some people, you know, and then we that got us into like, you know, really pushed us back with supermarkets, we were trying to expand our grocery business. But you know, we waited it out, and we kept the connections going and kept everything. And then we were able to, you know, get into the other other grocery outlets. So that was a big step for us.
Roger Hurni 9:34
So you pass all that now, and where what's the future look like? Where are you? What kind of growth are you looking for? Where are you hoping to take the concept?
Jeremy Gursey 9:45
So you know, I get asked that question often. And I've always been an niche business type of person I always there's so much competition and mass market. And so the need Short niche that I've been really focused on is what I know, which is hotels. We're focused right now on expanding hotel operations, which means what does that mean? It means coffee programs for hotels, you get the traveler, you get families, you get business travelers, you get individuals in hospitality, but that's basically a niche market that we're really focused on. And then followed by the grocery business grocery, has different margins, not as great because you're selling to distributors than they're selling to
Roger Hurni 10:34
leasing. It's a game of pennies. I used to work in the grocery business. It's a game of pennies. Yeah, and
Jeremy Gursey 10:39
it's volume. But what I look at it as it's a billboard on the shelf. And so when you get somebody that let's just say as a business traveler, and they go to Tetra hotel in Sunnyvale to visit Google, and they have our coffee, and we have a branded coffee store at that actual hotel, so that's another thing we do too, is branded retail coffee stores. And so they have our coffee there and they enjoy it, they love it. And you know, it's branded well there. And then they go to their local Whole Foods. Let's say they're from Colorado in the Rocky Mountain region, and they see Coffee Manufactory on the shelf and beautiful packaging. So it all ties together. And I learned that from a friend of mine who was head of marketing for Dunkin Donuts. And she told me how they put the word Dunkin in stadiums they focused who was their consumer, who is their you know, who was buying sports fans were big on Dunkin Donuts. And then I said, Did you have a Dunkin Donuts operation in a stadium? And they said no, we just put the word Dunkin on a wall paid for that wall. And it was subliminal advertising. One sporting fan sport fans went to the game and they see dunking on the wall. And then they're try and drive and buy a Dunkin and to put it in, basically embed it in their subconscious.
Roger Hurni 11:59
Yeah, no, I mean, there's just it's exposure. And the more you're exposed to a brand, the more memorable that can be. I can see where you're building this holistic ecosystem. And certainly if you've experienced great coffee at a hotel, you see it on the shelf, that there's a connection point. How does it work in reverse? I mean, is there if I've not been to the hotel, I've not been to those areas, and I see it on the shelf. What gets me to try it? Are you doing any kind of marketing or, or getting the word out there in a way that people start to understand the value proposition behind Coffee Manufactory?
Jeremy Gursey 12:36
That's, you know, again, another great question the way what we do, too, because it is listen, there's a lot of choices on the shelf, right when you walk into any grocery store, the first thing we have in our favor is packaging. We do have compostable biodegradable packaging, which also fits a certain needs, we try to get that across to the consumer, we also very colorful packaging, everything we do is color coordinated. Each single origin or blend has a color assigned to it along with a number. So there's packaging that is not drab and robotic. Like some of the other competitors out there. We worked with grocery buyers and distributors when designing our package. And for instance, you know, some mistakes were made along the way we had switched to a brick block bottom bag, and I'm gonna give this away to editors. But when we spoke to the grocery, they didn't like that, because it expanded too much on the shelf. And it could get less bags on the shelf. So they suggested to get prime placement, then we go to a smaller, which was our original bag. So we go down to a smaller bag more narrow. And then they also said to bring everything up on the bag, because it would be pushed forward in some grocery with a mechanism that brings it forward on the shine. So we had to allocate for all that, but we went to them. And then as far as the consumer, what we tend to do is we will do a social media and campaign, we will do paid ads will target re a region and market it before we get there. So let's just say when we were in Northern and Southern California, or Whole Foods, we went into the Rocky Mountain region, how are we going to get it off the shelf. We've done sampling and tastings, but you're only reaching a certain amount of people at that time that happened to be in the grocery store. So we would use social media, we would do targeted ads to the zip codes and we would pre market to the zip code that we're selling to. And then we would also target coffee drinkers. So if you're on Instagram and you're within a mile radius or four mile radius, whatever it was, and you pull up your Instagram and that ad will pop up for our coffee kind of getting an out there. The other thing we do is we do scan backs and promotions of immediately when we get in. There's a lot of people especially in this economy that are price conscious. And if it's $1, dollar 50 to $3 off, to get it into their hands to try, because coffee is such a ritual and a habit, people are already usually on a copy and they stick with that coffee, they don't really ventured to another coffee. So it's a good way to kind of get people to kind of change what they're doing. And you hope that they taste it, and they love it, and then they become a repeat customer. So that's the other factor that we use. And, and we have a little promotional coffee trike locally, we would take out we would do. But offI on Nitro, and we have a hot and I called nitro tap, and we would give like a version of our coffee and his little sample cups. But again, now was that was the smallest market that we would reach because it was only the buyer during right.
Roger Hurni 15:47
So so go ahead, but I was gonna
Jeremy Gursey 15:51
say packaging is really key like to differentiate yourself.
Roger Hurni 15:56
In the gross for business, I totally get that you see the market with some sort of social media campaign to get some awareness built up to drive some of that traffic? Do you do that as well, from just a pure maintenance standpoint, once you're in the market? Or do you just allow the store experience to carry itself?
Jeremy Gursey 16:15
No, that's what we do is all reinvest all profit for the first 120 days. So basically any profit from the first four months. So we we come in with the with pre focus with a promotion to let them know it's coming, then we're in the market, we're doing the scan back or, you know, you bond so to save or motion on the shelf. And then we will reinvest in social media ads and reinvest that profit for the first four months to make it a habit for people. And then you know, once like, I'll go into my local Whole Foods, and I'll see our collection do we do have a collection and old foods, but two of them are completely empty, or there's one bag left that can kind of study what is selling the most. And you know, the momentum is being built. And then what we'll do is we'll do a site, we'll maybe go off for about six months, and then we'll go back to see we've been on an off cycle. Now we're gonna go back to doing ads, again, letting people know and promoting the brand.
Roger Hurni 17:16
So it's about this is kind of part of that question. I mean, got coffee has become ingrained in our culture. And it doesn't look the same necessarily from generation to generation that can be types of drinks, types of copy, not copy. Are you finding it necessary? And maybe this is through social media? It's just happenstance. But are you seeing an opportunity to connect more with one generation over another? Like, is Gen z's, the up and coming generation that's going to be much larger? And is that a focus? Are you conscious of that?
Jeremy Gursey 17:56
We are we study who our coffee drinking audience is, and obviously, when we do coffee within Tartine stores and you know, it's each store has a different audience, depending on the different region it's in. So like Santa Monica, as opposed to say, Silverlake in California. And so we we will target as far as with coffee manufacturers? Well, we know you know, that our our audience started in the Bay Area in the Bay Area was more at sophisticated palates stay had, you know, acquired the taste of a lighter roasted coffees, which is ironic because it goes through coffee originated with Pete's which the hipsters and Gen Z ers would refer to as the Berkeley burn, just to them, it's too dark, right. But that's kind of study the start of the whole coffee movement. It was you know, Albert beat who was really before Starbucks, Starbucks in the early days carried Pete's coffee. So Poppy, if you study the history, so and then Starbucks, of course, being a darker roast, and then they noticed the change in audience to when they introduced blonde roast, or, which is, you know, on the lighter side, and so it's really catering to both audiences. Yeah. You know, when we go into a hotel, with a with our own store with our own branded store, our product line is is very interesting. We know that there's two types of drinkers. So what we'll do is we'll do a light espresso. So the light espresso of URIs, coffee snob, and you're really into coffee, you know, and you don't want a medium darker roast and you look down upon it, you can get an Americana you can get an espresso, you can get a latte. So we'll do that. We'll pair it with a more medium to medium to darker roast drip. And so that we can cater to that audience like my father, for instance, grew up on Pete's major Dickinson's plan He would fill out a postcard when I was a child right as his credit card number and and check a box but in the mail and three weeks later a bag of pizza would come. So like I myself grew up on second wave, as it's called, the more darker roast, you know that that evolved. And it's you know, it's just like business you have to adapt and evolve to your marketplace and we're constantly doing and, you know, so if coffee got really light or got certain, you know, took a different turn got really, really dark, we would we would probably, you know, we have to study with where we're going while maintaining our core brand standard as we are in this day. And
Roger Hurni 20:44
having worked on Peet's I'm very familiar with with their influence on the industry as a whole. But I know that that you are making headways around sustainability. And so I wanted to kind of tackle that area. In terms of the future coffee and sustainability, what are you working on around that. So we're working
Jeremy Gursey 21:07
on maintaining and keeping relationships with farmers, obviously, COVID was nothing that anyone ever expected or knew even how to deal with as it was happening. And so obviously, that kind of changed what we were or how we're doing what we were doing. Before COVID for years and years and years, we would go to the plantations and to the farms, I should say, and we would help, we would build a relationship with the farmers, we would help bring the crop in, we would work alongside them, they would let us know, from a sustainability practice what they felt that that coffee was worth. And then we would pay over that as part of a UN initiative, which basically shows that we pay above and beyond fair wages, and that they're able to take that extra money that we would pay and reinvest into their communities, build churches, schools, have fresh water and different things. So we still are very much part of that. And still, it's a core belief in what we do. And so you know, the only difference is because of COVID we had to we put it and go to the farms during that period. So we're we've already built the relationships and maintain those same relationships. And now it's just a matter of going back there again, and, and having that experience, but the relationship was still there. Now, an old one we're looking at, you know, the future of coffee, we along the way have built really great relationships. Right now we just started working with it was to female Appreciation Month, we started working with a woman owned farm where they the women process it, the women own it, and they have an incredible Columbian walk God forgive me if I say that wrong, but their coffee is really incredible. It's a little bit of a bigger bean than say, like an African coffee. And it is, but it's delicious. And it's got a really like a lemon zest to it. It's so but again, that's the relationship that we built through our network.
Roger Hurni 23:18
So earlier in our conversation, you, you you emphasize having worked with or getting copy from smaller farms. With the sustainability issue is this. I'm trying to figure out what the catalyst is for businesses that because it's great coffee, or there's some sort of altruism that you have there in terms of embracing the smaller farmers. Like why is why is that important to you to have those kinds of relationships.
Jeremy Gursey 23:49
It's important because it's really the foundation at the company was built on. If you if anyone is familiar with Tartine as a bakery, it was the same process that they do, how they bake bread go into small grain producers bringing in grain milling it themselves doing real Fraps you know, craftsmanship of of manufacturing. And so that's kind of been you know, the way the company Coffee Manufactory was born since it came from dark teen the importance of it, you know, listen it's it's a balance because we are a business we had to remain sustainable and we do pay a lot for coffee we pay more than say our editor because of the principles that we have. And it's just means you know, we have to build greater volume we have to have because the margin mine up to remain competitive at the margin might not be sane, but then we just want to get the coffee out there and get it to a wider audience.
Roger Hurni 24:55
So as a as a marketer communication professional while I think that It's wonderful and worth everything. i Oh, smell an opportunity, are you to being a great corporate citizen means you're doing good? And are you leveraging that in terms of a public relations effort, you know, bringing, bringing journalists in to see the operation or any of that sort of stuff,
Jeremy Gursey 25:22
yet, we just started. So we working with a national food broker that is getting us beyond the regional market and growing us and he's been helping us, like putting us together with ways to market and get that out, even on on the packaging, like making slight alterations to the companion labels and the packaging, so that we didn't get that across. But we have been what we've been working on a new marketing campaign to because it is important. And the first way to get it is in the package. That's yeah, you only have so many seconds of somebody passing by or looking at the different selections and Pick Me Pick Me It's, it's like a dog at a shelter, you know, so it's, you know, pick me the dogs or want them all, I want to take them off. So, you know, so that being said, I think that that's really important. And like you said, it's something where are starting to focus on now, you know, we really had to lay the infrastructure, get everything together, get ourselves out there become sustainable as a company with enough volume, and then now go to that next level.
Roger Hurni 26:30
So it sounds like you're getting some traction, things are things are going well, I'm curious as to what's the biggest challenge you're facing right now that's stressing you out.
Jeremy Gursey 26:42
The biggest challenge facing right now is a well, a lot of it is when you go into these accounts, you have to like hotel accounts, sometimes you have to come up with upfront capital to get into them with equipment. And that's because it's become an industry standard. And I'd say that's one of the biggest challenges because, you know, it's see what production we can reach capacity production. We produce, let's just say Monday through Friday, eight hours a day. But when we've had extra projects, and we need to go beyond capacity, we can run second and third ships. Yeah, do we have a special roaster that's a continuous roaster with two. So that's another thing I want to touch upon was the one differentiating factor that completely differentiates us in the marketplace is our roasting process. 1% of roasters in the world use this process, and it's called Cloud roast in and basically what it is, is it's instead of a hot drum metal drum like a frying pan, frying the bean when it roast we inject the roaster with hot air creates a cloud which envelops the bean lips that offer the metal and roasted even real almost like an air popcorn machine. And it's a completely different taste. It's cleaner, it's less acidic. A testament to what we're doing is this. We have a neighbor they produce coffee for a very large chain store that runs with radar Raider owes. And they have drum roasters this was a few years back and their drum roasters caught fire. And so they came to me and they said they had to get orders out. So what do we do? Well, you know, we need to get orders out. Can you roast our beans for us on your roaster, our formulation? Here's the specs for the roasting. So I said sure, you know, so they're being neighborly, we roasted their order for them. While they repaired the roasters, they sent it to the chain store for human quality assurance. It came back with guys what do you do different This coffee is the best tasting coffee we've ever had, that you guys have produced. So they came back to me and said, What the heck did you do you made the coffee too good. So they actually adopted our roasting process and replaced all their roasters with our roasting process.
Roger Hurni 29:12
Is this a process that you created or or is it just rarely used?
Jeremy Gursey 29:18
I didn't it was created by a gentleman named Michael civets who then licensed it to another process called Waring. And but it's been modified by us he's a genius. Like a Einstein of his senses passed away but of the coffee generation. He was like, really out there. Remember more about it was a dark brown from the future. It's more like but this guy created this machine that was incredible because he saw a problem in the industry. The reason it hasn't been adopted is because it's against the guy Rain we're in a very traditional business where people don't sway from tradition. And drumroll stickiness the traditional weight even though this guy has made a better process to me, I've owned drum roasters I've had but I purposely chose cloud Ripstick. Bakery, wine tastes as I wouldn't produce the same coffee on a drum and cloud roaster, give it blindly to 10 people and nine would choose are the same roast on the cloud roaster. So that's a really unique thing. That's also better for the environment. It's clean. We don't have roaster fires knock on wood, because we have no build up of shafts and our ventilation. In drum roasting, you have to shut the roaster down once a week, literally for a day. So they only roast four days a week, most roasters, they turn or ventilation and wow, what looks like a tree moss. But it's the shop in the bean which has been incinerated off of a metal drum roaster and ink Lex within the ventilation that's what catches fire. So you have to wipe that out and clean it. If you open our ventilation right now. It's nothing in there. It's a light. It's a light coffee dust.
Roger Hurni 31:12
Ah, interesting. No idea.
Jeremy Gursey 31:15
Yeah, so we could run, we don't have to shut down, we could run continuous. Our roaster was half the size of a full drum roaster. And we could produce as much coffee in the same amount of time as them because of our continuous ability to roast where they don't, we could drop one and we could put one out at the same time. And then go right into the next batch. And there's a there's a lot of pluses for it. But the biggest plus is taste the the other biggest pluses the environment if you care about, you know, I just woke up this morning. It's, you know, after I don't know if it might save us after July 4. And there was the skies were all dark here in Los Angeles. It's, you know, it's terrible from all the from all the fireworks, not knocking fireworks, but you know, for the environment. And we do our part by keeping things clean with our process. So that's, that's amazing.
Roger Hurni 32:12
Yeah. Okay, I we're almost at a time and I really want to get to some fluff questions. Because you guys, you have a fascinating background. And I'm kind of curious, I don't know how you got into become a personal coffee chef to celebs. But I'm kind of curious, like, how did that how did that happen?
Jeremy Gursey 32:34
It's, I'll give you the abbreviated version. I was wanting to be a filmmaker I wanted to work in the film industry didn't know a soul or a person in the industry, no relatives in it. Didn't know how the heck I was going to break in. I was going to film school at the time, but I worked at a coffee place in Studio City and this is in the 90s before. Off he was Starbucks had 12 stores in Los Angeles. If you can imagine how big coffee b&n Five. And so I saw that there was a need on film sets for coffee. It was Styrofoam cups and Folgers Coffee and literally on set. And I saw the culture that was being created by Starbucks. So I had the idea. And I shared it with a customer. He was a casting director. He was casting a movie with Johnny Depp. And he said, I'll be your first customer. And so that's kind of how I got into that. Started on the barista side, left the shop I was at and went on my own and did coffee on film sets. And really just took the experience of Starbucks, which was an elevated porch, you know, and brought it to the set with good coffee. And then it grew from there. And then what happened was I was I got on a movie with Michael Keaton, the actor, the original Batman. Okay. Awesome guy. I'm sitting in his trailer one day I brought him a coffee and we're talking he goes Jeremy, you're using other people's coffee because I was using others at the time when he says you got your this is your passion mag Oh, no, no, like, Well, I'm a filmmaker, who's my passion spill. And this is just to give me he's like No, your passions, coffee. I can see it with what you do. How proud you are of what you're putting out. It was learned to roast you got to have your own rose. So I thought about and so you're right, Michael Keaton. So I went and I tracked down a roaster. He was there's only five in Los Angeles at the time, Mike it literally count them on one hand. And I begged this guy to teach me how to roast and he didn't. He was reluctant at first and I said I'll work for free. I'll be resistant, whatever it took very, I'm very persistent. So that's to say i He took me under his wing and I couldn't afford a roaster at the time was about 19 years old. So he took me under his wing and as part of my pay, he would let me use his roaster at night and I would basically roast and then he taught he's the one that taught me everything about coffee. literally how to taste it how to source it, he would put blindfolds on me and me try different ones. And like basically determined that's 100 is that's a Peru differentiate regions, and the awesome, awesome experience. And then with that, I was now I had my own flavor, my own brand. And so what I did is I got the guy from the movie with Michael Keane went to do Jerry Maguire. And on that movie, I had more branded, you know, my stuff was more branded. And now it's my own flavor is actually my own coffee at that point now. And in the middle of the movie, Tom Cruise's assistant came over and said, Hey, Tom is a huge fan of your coffee. It's one of the best coffees ever had. How would you feel about coming on the road with us and being part of our team? And I said, What does that mean? He goes, Well, we have a personal chef, we have a nutritionist, we have a personal trainer, we have a full time, assume we want a full time barista. Now, how do you feel about that? And I said, Well, what do I charge you says, we'll go talk to the chef, see what they charge, charge the same. So I did and, and that's how I became, in I guess, immersed into that culture and to that side of the business and went all over the world for about 12 years working for Tom and making coffee for him, his crew, his people, the film crew, his family, his guests. And it was a fantastic experience. But it also gave me the money I needed to build my own Roastery and go out. So. So that was really how I broke in the real how I got on Seinfeld is a interesting story. But it's a it's a good story about hustling but I basically didn't I was in movie after movie could not break into television did not have any connections in TV. But I was going to film school I knew which producers did what and who did who. So I knew that this TV show called Hearts of fire on the CBS Radford a lot also shot on the same lot of Seinfeld. I took the producers name out of the credits of hearts of fire. And the producer out of Seinfeld, I just literally paused my recorded and on my VCR paused it wrote the name down all the studio cast to connect to the production office asked to speak to that person. And I started with words of fire. And I said to the producers name was Doug Jackson. And I said, Hey, you know, I'm calling from, you know, I do coffee on film sets. And I do all the coffee for Seinfeld, which is a complete lie was complete BS. And I said, you know, and I used a producer's name from the credits that I got. And I said, you know, Nancy Sproul was the producer said she wrote, she said that, I'd be a good fit for you guys. And he goes, Oh, you do coffee on Seinfeld? He goes, we'll try you out. He goes, whoa, why don't you come this Friday, we'll test you out. So that beyond the actual lot, I went and got the gig made. And he says, if we don't like you will never use you again. But we'll try it. So he used me they loved me. And the coffee, you might say they love the coffee. And then while I'm there, I took the drinks over Seinfeld found that producer who actually didn't drink coffee. And the two of them knew of each other but never actually connected. They they knew of each other, you know, same lots both and producers. So they never cross referenced or chat. Thank God, Nora. But when you're an entrepreneur, and you have zero to lose, you have exactly that zero to lose. I didn't have a reputation in TV. I didn't know anyone in TV, I didn't have a TV. So I had nothing to lose by trying this. What my reputation I didn't have one. So it was, you know, the risk was obviously high, but the reward was even higher. And that's why I shot it and so shot for that.
Roger Hurni 38:51
So that's great advice that, you know, you need that hustle sometimes, you know, when when you don't have a lot to lose you you go hustle. I know, we're almost out of time here. So I do have one quick wrap up question. And that is, since that was great advice. I'm kind of curious. What's the worst advice you were ever given?
Jeremy Gursey 39:11
Oh, wow. The worst advice I was ever given was to go into the
Roger Hurni 39:18
coffee business, Jeremy. Yeah.
Jeremy Gursey 39:23
I'm thinking the worst advice I was ever given. I had a guy that one time he owned a chain of sunglass stores. And he didn't like my name. And he didn't like the name of the company and this and the incarnation of and he gave me some advice about changing the name and and I had built up such branding with the name that I saw it was it was just that's probably the worst advice by the way that guys will use this name in his company. He's out of business now and he and I blast sunglass stores so yeah, and didn't take his advice that hurt by also the worst advice i The worst thing I ever did is I launched a product once with only trying it once. And I wasted the money on manufacturing it and I couldn't go to market with it. And so that's a war that was not the brightest thing. Getting molds and getting multiple this was a powder. We did that. It was a coffee, vanilla coffee powder. And so I overbought on this one perfect, but that's probably the worst ever. Alright, well,
Roger Hurni 40:31
lessons learned lessons learned. It's been Jeremy a pleasure having this conversation with you. Where can people get a hold of you and learn more about coffee? manufactury?
Jeremy Gursey 40:43
Yes, so they can go to our Instagram in coffee, add coffee manufactory.ca Sorry, at Matt coffee manufactory. Then our website, coffee manufactory.com. And we're working on watching a tick tock as we adapt to the marketplace and tick tock is the premier destination now especially for Gen Z to get news and product information and then and also Tartine bakery.com as a good way to get through to us through the website as well.
Roger Hurni 41:19
All right, well, thank you again. And everyone I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal, I'll catch you next time.
Outro 41:29
Thanks for listening to From Persona to Personal, the podcast that takes a closer look into how organizations personalize their marketing. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
