Enhancing the Future of Beverages

Stephanie is a relentless scientist specializing in product marketing and development, packaging, customer relations, and commercialization. She has designed commercialized products for both national and international brands and blended science with trading to increase customer centrality and revenues. She developed high-quality systems to manufacture food and beverages effectively, a remarkable contribution to the industry.

What are the roles and responsibilities you handle daily in the organization?

The entire journey of my current position has been quite interesting. I come from a highly technical background, and my area of study was related to dead bodies before joining the coffee and tea industry. I commenced this new beginning through an opening at Aston Beverage Group in the product development phase. Eventually, this organization was acquired by Finlays, and this is how I joined forces with it in 2020.

The shift from a microbiologist to product developer started in Aston Beverage Group, a family-owned business specializing in cold brew coffee. During this tenure, I worked with the brand Chameleon and helped in its rapid growth by offering solutions directly to retail that led to commercialization of bottles. This promoted me to innovation manager, I was responsible for overseeing the U.S. product marketing division and where I plastic packaging to increase the revenue stream. Since I had done an MBA, it was a matter of pride for me to implement innovative solutions that result in organizational excellence. This current job role has enabled me to prioritize product development instead of EPD to bring reformation to the industry as it promotes sustainability, connecting health and wellness to our tea and coffee beverages.

“We are one of the leading B2B manufacturers and suppliers of tea, coffee, and botanical solutions, offering services to beverage brand owners worldwide. Our aim is to provide natural beverages focusing on health, well-being, and functionality with a combination of tradition and innovation. Along with wellness, we emphasize in-house packaging to reduce carbon neutrality.”

What are some of the prominent challenges in the food service, design, and consulting market?

The major challenge we have encountered in the tea and coffee space is labor constraints in food service. Clients are dealing either with high turnover or inefficiency in brewing coffee that doesn’t align with the required standards. One of the instances is when clients approach us to seek solutions that require fewer steps for brewing with a more consistent product. Since cold brew coffee and food services consists toddy buckets, it has become competitive for the players in the market. But this system raises the issue of inconsistency between stores and requires a strong workforce. Running out of that cold brew could lead to a huge loss because brewing should be done the previous day of serving customers. This drives our clients to seek cutting-edge solutions where they can simply add water to already brewed coffee to resolve labor constraints, cut operating costs, and sell the products consistently throughout the day.

What practices do you believe should be implemented in the industry to make every operation seamless and provide customer satisfaction?

One of the best practices that I have experienced is to align business with food service space. Finlay a manufacturer and supplier, has been serving clients from the food service space, which has helped in designing products effectively, keeping in mind the needs of consumers. It provides a sense of trust and relief to the end user as products developed by the combined skills of manufacturer and vendor result in a positive customer experience. For instance, a major food service client guided us on the product they wanted to acquire. Initially, they did not bother to consider our feedback; they directly took it to the consumer panel, and Starbucks did not accept the product. Consequently, they reached out to us again after six months and asked for our feedback on the product. So, the best way to improve product development and meet customer needs is to build reliable partnerships. It is very important to communicate and have a smooth relationship between buyer and manufacturer so that the products can satisfy every customer's need.

What are some of the industry trends or technologies in the market that are promising for future investments?

One of the industry trends that I have encountered is businesses relying on automated tools to mitigate the problem of labor constraints; an automated barista is one of them that enhance every product offering. Leveraging automated tools can make operations efficient and consume time, but at the same time, we must keep in mind that in the coffee and tea industry, we still need manual effort to taste the products. Moreover, there is a lag in retailing compared to QSRs or seed stores in the food service space. So, our main focus is to produce natural beverages with health and wellness functionality. Consumers have become health-conscious, and they expect less caffeine to be consumed from beverages or an alternative to coffee because of its high cost. This has driven us to develop solutions through which our consumers can control caffeine throughout the day, so we started focusing on CBD infusions. This hands-on approach in our food services can be a game changer for emphasizing consumer health by reducing sugar and simultaneously offering natural beverages.

Along with focusing on consumer health, we have also stressed the issue of carbon emissions and taken the initiative to reduce the amount of packaging or shipping. The packaging is done in-house and shipped directly to the food service provider. For instance, food service providers receive bottles to store beverages that are imported internationally. So, the in-house packaging process helps reduce carbon neutrality since it is done within our own infrastructure.

What would be a piece of advice for your peers and aspiring professionals in the tea and coffee industry?

A key piece of advice for peers would be to be confident to ask their mentors questions while building their careers because the guidance we receive from our mentors helps us lead to the right path and makes our journey seamless. It is always about taking initiative; the more we start a conversation with them, the more we learn and develop. So, aspirants should never hesitate to reach out to their mentors.

Another piece of advice is to be as real as one could be. Everyone should follow the etiquette of professionalism but be authentic; this fosters a sense of trust and reliability in work relations.