Clarkson students tempting taste buds with Entrepreneur Coffee

POTSDAM — It’s not your average cup of joe.

Last week Clarkson University’s Reh Center for Entrepreneurship began offering its own coffee brand, Entrepreneur Coffee. Run by Clarkson students as a startup business, the product line is designed to create profits for reinvestment in local small-business development.

“The purpose is really to support small businesses and to give our students an opportunity to run a business in the north country,” said Erin M. Draper, associate director of the Reh Center. “We’ve had great response from everybody that’s been buying on campus.”

The coffee, which is supplied by the Lisbon-based St. Lawrence Valley Roasters, is being sold by the cup across Clarkson’s campus and in 12-ounce bags online. The beans are sourced from Fair Trade, U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified organic suppliers, and the coffee is available in a medium to dark roast signature blend as well as decaf, French vanilla and hazelnut varieties.

The coffee’s promotional items, including travel mugs, ceramic mugs, T-shirts and signs, are obtained from area businesses, with profits reallocated by the Reh Center. According to Justin S. Tremblay, a second-year student at Clarkson and the operations coordinator at Entrepreneur, the project has provided him with valuable hands-on experience in running a startup.

“I kind of get to be a small-business owner myself. I’ve just been developing this from scratch and going from an idea and trying to bring this whole thing to market,” he said. “It’s been very successful. I was very pleased with the support we’ve been getting from the community and from alumni.”

According to Mr. Tremblay, Entrepreneur Coffee prides itself on being sustainable, selling its whole beans in reusable plastic containers to eliminate paper bag waste and employing 100 percent recycled cup sleeves. Clarkson’s Institute for a Sustainable Environment also has awarded the enterprise an institutional gold certification for the greenness of its daily operations.

Although the Reh Center provided Entrepreneur Coffee with several thousand dollars in seed money this summer, the five or six students running the business hope to be self-sustainable by the end of the year. In the meantime, they plan to tempt taste buds across campus.

“It’s really great. It’s a very, very good coffee,” Mr. Tremblay said. “If you have a refined palate, I think you’ll really like it.”

Businesses interested in supplying Entrepreneur Coffee should contact Mr. Tremblay at 268-3978 or itsallgood@clarkson.edu. To purchase bags of whole beans or ground coffee, visit www.clarkson.edu/entrepreneur/coffee.html.