Family Express Brews Up Bean-to-Cup Partnership

VALPARAISO, Ind. — Family Express Corp. launched a new bean-to-cup (BTC) coffee program chainwide, offering customers the chance to receive the freshest coffee possible on demand.

The Valparaiso-based convenience store operator is in the process of rapidly deploying Franke Coffee Systems' bean-to-cup equipment in all its stores.

The bean-to-cup coffee lineup will include 12 hot and 12 iced coffee flavors.

"We wanted to deliver a superior quality drink to our valued customers, but we also wanted a large screen in order to tell the story and the ability to execute with minimal friction of only two touches," said Family Express President and CEO Gus Olympidis. "Franke Coffee Systems technology offered the only platform in the BTC space that could deliver all three objectives."

Family Express is bundling its bean-to-cup coffee rollout with a new upscale hot tea offering, having partnered with the Metropolitan Tea Co. to bring Metz Luxury Tea to the chain.

"Our goal was to distance our Tea offering from the ordinary C-Store experience. Metz Luxury Tea is the preferred Tea brand at Four Seasons Hotels," said Ryan Fasel, director of marketing for Family Express. "Everything in our hot dispensed lineup breathes the essence of quality and we wanted a tea option that communicated our difference in the marketplace."

Family Express operates 75 c-stores throughout northwest and central Indiana.