Corporate Essentials Redefines Office Coffee Service To Fuel Workplace Culture

CHANGE AGENT:Judson Kleinman is disrupting the way his clients and prospects view office coffee service by introducing new product categories into their workplaces and delivering them to employees in novel ways. In his own office, Kleinman practices what he preaches by providing a breakroom full of perks for his employees.

The younger generation entering the workforce seeks environments in which employees feel a sense of collaboration, with greater emphasis on teamwork. In the New York City region, Corporate Essentials sees cubicles being replaced by open-space floor plans. In some offices, conference rooms feature stadium seating and breakrooms are more like lounges, with music and plush couches. Some have shuffle alleys, pool tables and pinball machines to add an element of fun. Another growing trend is for workplaces to have "quiet rooms" where people can unwind.

"Accompanying the 'upscaling' of the breakroom is recognition by employers of the value in spending money not only on great coffee, but on healthy snacks and beverages to attract and keep young, smart talent," Kleinman said. "In the old days, employers didn't want employees to congregate around the water cooler. Now they have rooms where they can sit on big cozy cushions on the floor and talk."

Office Everything Service

Celebrating 20 years in the industry, the Parsippany, NJ, firm has taken the cue and repositioned itself, from its roots as a traditional office coffee service to a full-service food and beverage provider. It's also invested heavily in marketing the role it can play in building a positive culture in today's workplace.

At the foundation remains Corporate Essentials' commitment to giving its clients' employees little reason to leave the office by providing a coffee program that can rival any local coffeehouse or gourmet chain. The pronounced change that's taken place in recent years is that clients who once focused on keeping the cost of providing complimentary refreshments for their employees to a minimum now want to woo them with pantries full of perks.

Corporate Essentials serves this growing need with a "free vend" model. It's increasingly commonplace for the company to provide its clients with refrigerated coolers, merchandised with items like fresh fruit, yogurt and cold beverages .. compliments of the employer.

"Everyone wants the intangible 'great culture,'" said operations vice-president Joe Simonovich. "Healthy snacks and drinks are not a magic bullet, but they're something concrete that touches employees all day and gives locations a foundation to build the whole culture on. What we do is an important tool for CEOs and HR."

A year ago, Kleinman and Simonovich retained a marketing agency to help establish a brand identity, logotype and look that communicates Corporate Essentials' new tagline and mission -- "Fuel culture. Work happy." -- to its customers, prospects and employees.

Kleinman and Simonovich also recognized the importance of buying into the philosophy they were selling within their own company, demonstrating to their customers and employees that they practice what they preach.

"In any business, the No. 1 asset is the employee. Our staff communicates with, supports and delivers product to our customers," Kleinman said. "We want to live what we sell and provide a culture that communicates our appreciation to them."

At Corporate Essentials headquarters, a jukebox cranks out tunes in a bright, open central workspace. Its upscale breakroom features luxurious couches, a flatscreen television and a plethora of hot and cold beverages and snacks. Employees gather on Fridays during the summer for barbecues. During the winter, complimentary soup is the Friday afternoon perk. The company periodically treats its employees to free lunch and fosters camaraderie with events like last summer's pie-eating contest.

"We try to follow our clients' lead to create a positive atmosphere," said Kleinman. "We want a place where people really want to go to work."

Coffee Commitment

Corporate Essentials' core mission, when it entered the market two decades ago, was to differentiate itself through the quality of its coffee. This goal not only remains central, but is pursued to an even higher degree and in new ways.

Millennials' focus on social consciousness and sustainability, as well as health and wellness, is driving demand for more locally produced products in workplace breakrooms. This includes everything from coffee and snacks to fresh produce and baked goods.

The trend has driven Corporate Essentials to build relationships with local roasters. Simonovich also hired an expert with a background in "third wave" coffee to oversee the whole coffee program.

"Third wave is about local roasters who make smaller batches and are really dedicated to the craft and focused on sustainability," Simonovich explained. "They have personal relationships with the growers; they're so passionate about delivering an unbelievable product that you can taste in the cup."

Cold Brew Craze

Another pioneering, trend-driven addition that Corporate Essentials made to its coffee program about a year ago is cold-brewed iced coffee. The OCS operation partnered with New York City-based Irving Farm Coffee Roasters to develop the coffee for optimal brewing with the new method. Irving Farm roasts and grinds the coffee to Corporate Essentials' specifications in small batches at its facility on a converted farm in New York's Hudson Valley. Corporate Essentials then brews it, pours it into kegs and delivers it to customers from its northern New Jersey headquarters.

It takes 16 hours for the coffee to brew in room-temperature water. The method is known for producing coffee served cold and prized for a smoother, less acidic taste than the product of the traditional hot-brewing method.

Corporate Essentials first experimented with small (one-gallon) batches, then brewed five gallons at a time for delivery to customers. Demand grew quickly, and production increased to 25 gallons at a time.

"Now we brew a lot more than that," said Kleinman. "People go crazy over it in the office. The Kegerator plugs into a wall socket and gas pushes the beverage through it, just like beer. We bring back the empty kegs, sterilize and refill them, and we keep the accounts that have cold-brew coffee stocked with fresh kegs at all times."

Manufactured by San Diego, CA's KegCo., the Kegerator holds metal kegs in a refrigerated cabinet, and a nitrogen cylinder to pressurize the tank. The gas propels the beverage through a dispensing head on top. The Kegerator was designed for beer supplied by breweries in metal kegs of different capacities; several models now are offered for cold-brewed coffee.

Corporate Essentials is also a distributor of New York City-based Wandering Bear Coffee Co.'s cold-brew-in-a-box coffee to workplaces in the greater New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. The bag-in-box units are received cold, stored cold and delivered cold, so this novel product offering requires onsite cold storage and refrigerated trucks.

"What Starbucks did for the industry by helping educate consumers on what average coffee is and what great coffee can be can't be talked about enough," Kleinman remarked. "What's gone on with single-cup is also unbelievable. It all lets us continue to lead by providing the highest level of coffee to suit varied budgets and preferences through bean-to-cup machines, pods, capsules and Flavia packs."

Sky's The Limit

Beyond coffee, Corporate Essentials helps its clients up the ante in their quest to attract and retain young talent by offering just about anything they want to provide. One novel concept it created to broaden the possibilities is a display of "scoop-your-own" bins of bulk candy, cereal and nuts to satisfy employees with munchies throughout the day.

"We're flexible, and we make it a point to adapt to different client needs, which makes us a great provider of services," Simonovich said. "We truly try to never say that we can't do or provide something. We stretch our capabilities to accommodate the customer."

Natural, wholesome snacks and drinks that fit healthier lifestyles are in great demand. Simonovich said it's the norm for today's consumers to look at labels, seeking products that are free of chemicals and genetically engineered ingredients, less processed, and formulated with less sugar and sodium, among other attributes.

Such products were hard to come by only a few years ago, but nowadays, many of the smaller companies that produce them pitch Corporate Essentials every week. "It's great that there is so much out there to keep variety interesting, but we do have to be resourceful and buy from a lot of places, including directly from some of the more local producers," Kleinman reported.

Corporate Essentials doubled its office and warehouse space three years ago when it moved from nearby Fairfield, NJ, to its current 22,000-sq.ft. Parsippany headquarters. It has also doubled its employee base since the move, from a team of 30 to more than 70.

Its ever-expanding product line currently stands at some 2,500 SKUs, which include janitorial supplies and paper goods, along with a vast range of consumables. The company also fulfills orders received by its Shoffee.com e-commerce site, which was launched in 2007, from the facility.

Corporate Essentials services offices with as few as 10 employees, and up to populations as high as 2,000.

Logistical Adaptation

Providing such a broad product offering, with 17 trucks on the road, comes with extra challenges, especially when handling perishable fruit and dairy.

"We need refrigeration on trucks and in the warehouse; it's a big investment," said Kleinman. "It's still very challenging to keep dairy in date and fruit fresh, and not have too much waste but still have enough to deliver to the customer. It's all about having good people and processes in place, and always looking to be better at all we do. Change is good, but you need to find the right approach."

For Corporate Essentials, that includes a dedicated climate-controlled room where the company stores its bananas, which can't be stored in an environment too hot or too cold, at the ideal temperature of 58°F. to 64°F.

Kleinman said having the right people in the right positions has been a key driver of the company's swift growth. To lay the foundation for the next round, he and Simonovich are in the process of bringing in a new layer of higher-level management, including a director of corporate culture.

HOT, COLD & BULK:Complimentary cold drinks merchandised in refrigerated coolers have become an added employee amenity, alongside a premium coffee program at many offices Corporate Essentials serves. And the company takes OCS outside the box by installing "scoop-your-own" containers (upper right) of bulk candy, cereal and nuts in its clients' breakrooms.

Partnering with the right people extends beyond the company's immediate market. In recent years, Corporate Essentials has expanded its services beyond the New York metropolitan area for clients with additional offices in other regions by partnering with operators in those markets. It serves 10 other metropolitan markets across the country in this way.

Under these agreements, the company manages the contract and pricing for the locations served by its partner operators and provides a single invoice to the client. The offerings generally mirror those Corporate Essentials provides for the client's main office, unless any of them are regionally unavailable. The operator serving the out-of-town location bills Corporate Essentials, and is the main point of contact for the location, should any service issues arise.

"We respond to problems with honesty, integrity and passion, and we only partner with operators who share our philosophy," Kleinman said.

Spreading The Word

Kleinman said Corporate Essentials' mission includes continuing to disrupt what people think of office coffee service, on as large a scale as possible.

Part of this disruption involves creative market outreach. One example of this occurred last May when the company hosted clients, prospects and associates at New York City's The Times Center for a "Morning of Coffee and Culture."

The goal of the weekday morning gathering was to educate business professionals about the value of building a positive office culture in today's changing workplace, and the pivotal role that refreshments can play in this process. Guest speakers included Rohan Marley, chairman of Marley Coffee (he's the son of Jamaican reggae legend Bob Marley), and world-renowned social media expert and author Gary Vaynerchuk.

"The event was a huge hit," Kleinman told VT. "It's something I haven't heard of any other operator doing, and it really communicated in a big way what we can provide to the New York City market as companies seek new ways to attract a new, different and very demanding generation."

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