Keith Lemnios, the CEO of Sun Coffee came to speak to us about Sun Coffee’s marketing strategies and the new frontiers they are approaching. As a current marketing student, this Cafe was particularly interesting to me.

Mr. Lemnios spoke about his companies effort to partner with universities. Sun Coffee takes pride in its ability to maintain and practice good labor laws and fair trade practices. Since university students are more concerned about advertising for just labor laws and fair trade practices, this partnership greatly benefits the company.

It was interesting to hear Mr. Lemnios to speak about his insight on marketing. He mentioned that more and more, consumers are concerned about how the products that they consume are being produced. The background of the product is becoming as important as the product itself. It was refreshing to hear the the CEO of such a successful company put so much emphasis on fair labor practices.

Last week, I attended the Rose Cafe with Keith Lemnios. As someone who is interested in business, this cafe was very interesting. At my old school (Fordham) the business school was introducing a new focus on social entrepreneurship, so what Mr. Lemnios was discussing was very familiar. Where something was produced or how it was produced is becoming a big deal for consumers. People feel better about the products that are doing the things that Sun Coffee does. I think it is smart that Sun Coffee has partnered with universities because students are one of the demographics that are becoming more conscious about Fair Trade items.

It is interesting to parallel Sun Coffee with Nike because of the differences in production. Nike is using sweatshops and are still one of the most successful companies in the world. They make a good product. I wonder how the Sun Coffee tastes compared to Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. All around campus I see people drinking these coffees. I am not a coffee guy so i didn’t try any of the Sun Coffee provided by Mr. Lemnios, but it would be interesting to see the lengths people are willing to go to get their desired coffee. Sun is more available because it is sold on campus, but Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are just in Collegetown.  I am not familiar with the production practices of Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, but I dont think they are doing the programs that Sun is doing.

I also liked the Ted talk video that was shown. I think the circle diagram shows why many lifestyle brands are taking off because people want to associate themselves with products that represent what they belief in. It will be interesting to see how these companies perform in the future and what new trends will emerge. All in all, this was one of the more interesting rose cafes this year.

Honestly, I don’t even like coffee.  Hate it actually.  Only find it tolerable with sufficient amounts of cream and sugar to effectively make it a milkshake.  So instead of talking about coffee, I will take this opportunity to take umbrage with the Ted Talk that the speaker showed in order to explain his business’s goal.

Said Ted Talk is by Simon Sinek, in which he claims that all truly successful companies start with a belief (“why”) rather than a product (“what”).  He claims that the “common” advertisement goes somewhat like the following: “We make great computers.  They’re sleek and easy to use.  Want to buy one?”  Then, an effective advertisement says: “We believe in challenging the status quo.  We do that by selling sleek and easy to use computers.  Want to buy one?”

I don’t know how to view this claim as anything other than inaccurate.   Nobody tries to sell things by just claiming “They’re great, do you want one?”  That’s ridiculous.  Just about every single advertisement, be it a commercial, an audio clip, or a magazine page, depicts some sort of image along with their product.  The woman using the detergent is a mom in a spotless suburban house with two perfectly groomed children.  The Spotify ad plays the sound of a lively party in the background and uses “cool” slang.   That’s what marketing IS in many contexts: selling a product by way of selling the consumer an image of themselves.

The explicit identification of a company “belief” might be an effective way of creating and communicating that image, but in the end I don’t see how it’s much different from choosing particular models, particular imagery, and particular language to sell a product.  I don’t think people are really buying the idea of saving the rainforest when they buy coffee, because they have no idea whether that label is a reality and I don’t think most people are going to do extensive research to figure it out.  You’re buying the idea that you buy rainforest-friendly coffee.  Just like you might buy the idea that certain shoes will make you a serious athlete, or that a certain brand of peanut butter makes you a good parent.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”  I would say that people buy the image they like, and sometimes a company’s “why” may factor into that image.  I can come up with plenty of companies that are wildly popular for which I personally can’t identify a “why”.  So Apple’s is (or was) to “challenge the status quo”.  Perhaps Samsung’s is “to challenge Apple”.  Lego’s is “to inspire creativity in children”.  But what about Starbucks?  Or Target?  Or Coke?  Or Microsoft?  They have images, sure, but do those images include some sort of overarching ideological tenets?  If they do, I can’t come up with them.

To describe this mysterious “why”, Sinek uses terms like “the reason you get up in the morning”, and even goes so far as to claim that profit should be an incidental result for a truly influential company.  I am extremely skeptical of the idea that a company’s “why” is a sincere and intrinsic part of the company, as opposed to a deliberate strategy for selling the “what”.  The whole concept seems like an unnecessary and entirely too optimistic abstraction of what is essentially the central idea behind all of brand creation.

As a busy college student, I have never relied on coffee to help me stay awake, alert, or energized for my day to day work. Everyone around me has an opinion about coffee. From what coffee brands taste the best, to how much milk and sugar should be allowed with coffee, to how coffee beans should be roasted, I have heard it all. The way people like to take their coffee is a reflection of who they are and what qualities look for in the beverage. However, I learned this week that coffee is more than a satisfying brewed drink, it is a source of income for many laborers who work tirelessly to cultivate coffee beans and ground coffee for commercial use. During the last rose café talk, Keith Lemnios, the founder of Sun Coffee Roasters, showed how the best products represent more than their brand, they represent a mission to make the world a better place.

Lemnios told us that he makes coffee in order to support the households and educate the children of families on the Nicaraguan farm that cultivate the Sun Coffee Roasters products. Coffee with a mission is exactly how I would describe Sun Coffee Roasters. It’s a company that believes in giving back to underprivileged communities around the world while making a high quality product. By standing behind socially responsible companies like Sun Coffee and buying their products, consumers can support important causes such as environmental protection, poverty alleviation, and education. Even though buying coffee from Sun Roasters might seem like a small step towards mitigating poverty, each pound of coffee purchased actually takes 3 months of labor from each worker. In those months, the workers get paid to cultivate the coffee and then use the money to feed their families and send their children to school. By purchasing products that impact the world positively, consumers can lend a hand towards saving our planet and its people.

From Mr. Lemnios’ picture of him spooning some coffee on the advert for this event, I thought he’d be speaking about how to approach tasting coffee. The talk turned out to be about his coffee company and how it operates with good intentions. His presentation was pleasant and I think he did a great job of conveying his experience as an entrepreneur.

Mr. Lemnios had a presentation of pictures for us of one of the South American coffee plantations that Sun Coffee Roasters sources from. It was nice to see that all the workers seemed happy; he really emphasized how much his company takes this into account when sourcing coffee beans.

Although we were mostly given the bright side of the story, the talk made me realize how bad some of these plantations could be, in terms of the worker’s well-being. I may take this into consideration the next time I buy some beans.

Last week I went to Keith Lemnios talk on Sun Coffee. I must admit I did not go into this talk with the best mindset. My mind wandered back to daily memories of me frantically chugging this coffee, asking myself if there was even a drop of caffeine in it. I was ready to burst our my complaints until I heard Keith’s moving stories about working with the coffee farmers. Keith did a great job in showing us that he is really trying to take care of the farmers that work for his company. Sun roasters coffee is building schools and making sure farmers kids get an education. I was deeply moved by this after seeing evidence of how hard coffee farming really is. Now instead of complaining about the lack of caffeine in this coffee, I will happily drink it knowing that this coffee is allowing a child to get the education he or she needs. That’s the taste of literacy my friends!

Last Wednesday, I attended the talk by Keith Lemnios about his company, Sun Coffee Roasters, which is the company that provides coffee to all of the dining halls here on campus. As a person who does not drink coffee, I did not know what to expect from the talk, but I actually found it to be really interesting and informative. What in particular interested me was the business approach the company had. Instead of focusing on the what that their company did (sell coffee), they focused on the why (to help coffee growers). Mr. Lemnios mentioned that people often buy products for the why, and not the what. For instance, many people insist on buying Apple products, even though there are plenty of alternatives. One of the main ways that Apple is different from those other products is that they market themselves as being a company that focuses on producing high quality products, regardless of what those products are. This idea interested me, since I feel like I would buy a product for the mission of the company, rather than just from any company. This is a way for consumers to show support for certain goals by spending money on products that they would have purchased anyway.

Keith Lemnios, the CEO of Sun Coffee Roasters, visited the Rose Cafe this week and talked about his business and “mission-driven coffee.” It is something that I have not heard of before but it is actually a brilliant idea. Given the relative obscurity for consumers of where exactly we get our food, “mission-driven” products can be something we should try to favor since they specifically go out of their way to give fair conditions to workers and take an active interest in enriching their lives. Lemnios did dedicate a portion of his talk on how coffee was made but the main theme was the vision of his company and what he works for. I appreciated his insight on why companies like Apple were so successful when titans of old failed to succeed where they dominated, e.g., iPod and iPhone. Unlike most, Apple works backwards and establishes their vision and purpose before the actual product. The product they would be selling is the result of their relentless drive and pursuit of that vision and that causes consumers to become attracted to said product if they can see why Apple is doing what it is. Similarly, Lemnios saw that coffee farmers weren’t necessarily getting a fair price for what they were selling and set out to make sure he had a company and supply chain that would allow him to achieve that goal of ensuring fair wages, safe workplace conditions and more.

It was interesting to see how his company affected each part of the typical and well-established coffee manufacturing process in a way that was advantageous to the farmers and the community from which the production of coffee is ensured. He built a preschool for little children so their older siblings could go to school themselves and created opportunities from which the next generation could pursue outside of farming coffee beans. Sustainability was also a key focus according to Lemnios in that parts of the coffee were recycled to serve as fertilizer when combining with earthworms. It was fascinating to hear how a Professor from a university was connected to someone from his coffee farms to collaborate on creating earthworm-based fertilizer and such.

Being an informed buyer was something I took away from this discussion and I appreciated the various things he pointed out I could do to achieve that, such as looking for the Rainforest Alliance logo with a frog. I plan on looking for ways to improve the selection of goods and see if I can’t opt for a product that has guaranteed safe working conditions, fair wages to its workforce and more. Consumers hold a great deal of power in dictating how business is done and favoring products that promote such conditions would inevitably drive the entire industry towards them.

Last week’s Rose Cafe allowed me to have the great pleasure of meeting Keith Lemnios, the CEO of Sun Coffee Roasters. Through this discussion, I was able to learn more about his company and vision. I thought that one of the most interesting parts of the discussion was really how Mr. Lemnios emphasized the “why” aspect of leadership. Leaders cannot be leaders without answering this question of “why” their product is benefiting others or why they seek to pursue this vision in the first place. Many companies often operate under a mission of serving the greater good when they actually only seek the monetary profits, through this talk, I learned how companies really hold value in themselves beyond the profits.

Mr. Lemnios discussed how he is mission-driven and seeks to provide his employees with the benefits and resources that they need as well as provide his customers with coffee that is fresh and worth the money they paid. I very much admire Mr. Lemnios’s mission-driven attitude and hope that I can apply this type of approach as I seek out my own goals and advance in my professional life as well.

At the Rose Cafe, it was great to have Keith Lemnios, the CEO of Sun Coffee Roasters, lead a discussion on coffee and his company’s approach. Even though I am actually not a huge fan of coffee myself, I was still excited to hear the leader of a company discuss his beliefs and philosophies. He began the discussion by displaying a clip of a TED talk video, where a speaker stated that what separates the the most prominent and successful individuals and companies, such as Martin Luther King and Apple, is their emphasis on answering the question of “why”: these individuals and companies carry out actions and build products based on their convictions and core beliefs. I actually found this statement to be remarkably profound, since I had always viewed companies as entities that were simply profit-seeking and profit-maximizing by building out as elite of a product as possible. However, I can definitely see how consumers often make decisions based not purely on the product itself, but also the way in which the company’s values and beliefs align with their own.

Mr. Lemnios stated how this mission-driven attitude shapes his approach to running Sun Coffee Roasters. His mission is to provide farmers that the company partners with and their families with quality wages, as well as opportunities in education for individuals to leave the cycle of farming from generation to generation if they so choose. I was deeply impressed by this mission-driven approach, and I feel many companies in today’s era would be better off by having such an attitude.

The Rose Cafe talk this week was given by Mr. Lemnios, the head of the Sun Coffee Roasters. (Sun coffee is served in the dining halls at Cornell.) He talked about how he got into coffee, and after traveling to coffee farms he decided that it was important to pay his coffee growers enough to actually live on, as well as investing in education for their children. Since then he has visited the coffee farms that he’s partnered with and ensured that the growing process is sustainable, that the growers are being paid reasonably, and even built schools for the farms.

Mr Lemnios talked about how companies can make themselves stand out from their competition by having a clear mission, a “why” the are doing what they are doing. Leading with this “why” in marketing can be extremely effective in outselling competitors.

I think that it’s great that Cornell is supporting a company that strives for fair trade and sustainability. I also think that having a mission is not only beneficial to a company but also to consumers. Many people, especially from younger generations are thinking more about where the products they are buying come from and what kind of impact they have. I think it’s important to remember that we have great power over the market with our purchases. If we decide to put our money towards things that we believe in those things will become more prevalent. And if collectively we can stop supporting practices that we don’t believe in, companies will either die out or change. We really can vote with our dollar.

This week’s Rose Café event was focused on coffee and coffee farming. The speaker was the CEO of a coffee roasting company that supplies coffee to Cornell Dining. The coffee roasting company tries to supply coffee in a responsible manner and provide workers with greater opportunities. His company has help fund preschools, health clinics, and other necessities for coffee farmers.

I was most surprised to learn of the amount of physical labor that goes into producing a small amount of coffee. The coffee is picked by hand, often in remote areas, and carried in large bags by hand. Next the beans must be separated from the fruit within 48 hours to prevent fermentation. One farmer will spend countless hours picking coffee and hauling hundred pound bags down mountains for months only to produce a small amount of coffee. Other workers must manually sort every coffee bean to ensure quality.

Prior to the talk, I had never realized how labor intensive coffee production is. It was amazing to learn more about the lives of coffee farmers and their living conditions. The next time I drink a cup of coffee, I will have a much greater appreciate of the hard work of coffee growers.

This Rose Café event was one of the most engaging and informative of the semester.

Yesterday, I attended the Rose Cafe with Keith Lemnios about Sun Coffee. As an avid coffee drinker, I was really interested in learning more about the company that supplies the coffee to the dining halls here at Cornell. I expected to just hear about the process of making coffee, but ended up learning so much more about the company and the great things they are doing to help the environment and the lives of their workers.

Lemnios told us how he reevaluated his companies practices after finding out that the families that were growing the beans had been earning the same level of wages since the 40’s. Since then, they have worked to provide living wages to families and really enhance the lives of their workers. They have invested in the education of the families that work on their farms and work to provide better lives for them. Lemnios really seemed invested in the welfare of their workers, and it really showed through his visits to the farm to check in on the workers and how they are doing. I think this is awesome, especially being in ILR, I am extremely interested in companies that care so much about the workers, especially in countries that do not have the labor laws in place regarding safety, working conditions and wages that we have in the US. The company was also extremely concerned with their environmental impact, and preserving the rainforest. More companies have been adopting corporate social responsibility and this trend should continue, as it really shows the trends towards companies caring more about their impact on the world than making a profit.

I also learned information about the process of making coffee that I had not known before. While this is slightly embarrassing to admit considering my coffee addiction, I did not know that coffee beans grew on trees and were the seeds of cherries from the trees. It was really interesting to see the process by which Sun Coffee roasts their beans, and see the measures they have taken to ensure their process is sustainable and environmentally friendly.

This Rose Cafe really opened my eyes and made me think more about where the things I eat and drink actually come from. Before, I never really considered the supply chain and processes it takes to get the coffee to the dining hall, and now that I know, I have a greater appreciation for this coffee and the great company behind it.

This week’s Rose Cafe was given by Keith Lemnios who founded the company Sun Coffee Roasters in 2006. I found his talk to be very insightful, even for a coffee un-enthusiast like myself. Mr. Lemnios started by talking about the qualities that help a company succeed, the most important of which is having a core message or a mission somewhat independent from the product itself. For his company, their goals are to be environmentally friendly and socially responsible. Their harvesting of coffee beans is done in the rainforests, chemical-free, and their roasting of beans is done with very little pollution emitted. In terms of helping the coffee farmers, Sun Coffee Roasters provides living wages and helps provide education for the children of the farmers in Nicaragua. Mr. Lemnios goes to the country frequently and oversees the building of schools and daycares which help the children complete their education so that they may have opportunities in their lives that their parents did not. This is a mission that resonates particularly well with colleges, and Cornell University is among many that support his company by buying the coffee for the dining halls.

Mr. Lemnios’ parting words were essentially asking us to reflect on our own decisions as consumers when choosing what to buy and which companies to support. This got me thinking about the products that I frequently use and buy. For example, there have been many reports over the years about inhumane labour practices in Apple factories and the Nike sweatshops, etc. Yet, I’m sat here typing this on my Mac computer, with a pair of neon Nikes on the ground below me, and a bunch of ‘fast fashion’ clothes hung neatly in my closet. I am more or less in an ethical dilemma between my wanting to stand by principles on what is right and my own materialist desires for ‘luxury’ goods. I honestly have no idea how to reconcile these two, so I sort of live with this vague feeling of uncomfortable guilt when I think too much about stuff this.

It is so great to hear about how companies like Sun Coffee Roasters are really making a difference in people’s lives and I’m glad that Cornell supports them. I only wish every other company cared so much about the environment and the people.