WILL MOSES
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MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS1000 Piece Puzzle 19-1 / 4 ” X 26-5 / 8 ”
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Courtesy Bob Stiller
SCHOOL PICNIC 19-1 / 4 ” X 26-5 / 8 ”
WHITE CREEK SUNRISE 19-1 / 4 ” X 26-5 / 8 ”
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Bennington Museum , Bennington , VT Bear Pond Books , Stowe , VT Vermont Artisan Designs , Brattleboro , VT F . H . Gillingham & Sons , Woodstock , VT Sweet Cecily , Middlebury , VT
48 VERMONT MAGAZINE
1000 Piece Puzzle $ 19.75
1000 Piece Puzzle $ 19.75
Hard Cover Book $ 17.99
EZ Wider , you were up in Vermont and discovered Green Mountain Coffee . One of the things that hooked you was that papers get consumed from smoking , coffee gets consumed from drinking , and the customer will always buy more . Do you feel consumption is critical to every business ?
BS : I would say it ’ s not true of every business . If you ’ re building an appliance , for example , you don ’ t want it to go bad . You want it to last as long as possible , and have customers share their experiences , create a quality image , brand reliability , and do a lot of other things to build your business . But I do like the consumable model . We did have a niche when we started with wider papers , but that didn ’ t last long . Others copied us . Coffee was a quality product , and that was a bit of a differentiator , but it was still a commodity . We tried to differentiate ourselves with the best quality , the best service , and by getting into corporate social responsibility ( CSR ) initiatives — things like sourcing and doing things the right way , which became another product differentiator . We educated the customer about what we were doing , so they could appreciate the coffee more . We were trying to be different because coffee is a commodity . But when the Keurig machine came along , that was a monopoly . Other roasters had licenses , but when we acquired Keurig and then all the other roasters , we were able to have both the product used in the machine and the machine itself . That allowed us to really market the product , equipment , and experience .
JS : You mention in the introduction of the book , that Vermont was a small , mostly rural state with a population of slightly over half a million people when you first came here in the early ‘ 80s . It was an unlikely place to launch a national consumer packaged goods company . I was hoping you could talk about Vermont . It has changed a lot in the last 40 years , and on the other hand , it hasn ’ t changed much . The thing you talk about in the book is that Vermonters were hardworking , with strong value systems and good neighbors , and because of that , you were able to build the company and the team . What were some of the challenges you faced starting a business in Vermont ?
BS : Those values were certainly great to have in an organization , because