Small Business Month

S M A L L B U S I N E S S M O N T H - S U p p L E M E N T T O T H E W I N N I p E g F r E E p r E S S - W E d N E S d A y , O c T O B E r 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 8 1575LagimodiereBlvd 204.661.1575 2100McGillivrayBlvd 204.222.2100 305MainSt,Steinbach 204.326.3495 scu.mb.ca Callorvisitustoday. WHENITCOMESTOBUSINESSBANKING, IT'SIMPORTANTTOHAVEASTRONGCORNER. Runningabusinessistough.Itrequiresalot ofhardwork,dedicationandcommitment. Withthepowertomakedecisionsrighthere,SteinbachCreditUnioncommercial bankingandlendingexpertsgothedistancetokeeplocalbusinessesintheringand offtheropes.Callustodayandseewhatwecandoforyou.Afterall…we'retaking careoftheworld'smostimportantbusiness...yours.® Edmonton café chain finds its niche in crowded coffee market dan Barnes Postmedia News edmonTon — In a retail sector that positively brims with competitors both monolithic and minuscule, tiny Transcend Coffee's cup remains at least half-full of idealism. It's an expensive ingredient. The owners of Edmonton's two-café chain — down from three after they closed a too-large, money-losing outlet earlier this year — prefer to pay more to Central American suppliers for top-notch, or as they call them, zero-defect green coffee beans. Devotion to quality is integral to their mission statement and paying more for it is a means of walking the walk, not merely talking the talk, on sustainability. It has also been their most overt attempt to differentiate themselves from the rest of the retail coffee klatsch in Edmonton. But they have discovered that the sustainability message is popular with most retailers, regardless of corporate commitment level along the bottom line. "The average price we're paying for coffee this year is $4.82 per pound. The commodity price is at $1.15 the last time I checked, so we are about four-times market right now," said marketing director and part-owner James Schutz. "For most folks in the coffee business, this would seem much too high but that's what we're paying. We're after the very best quality and want to pay sustainable prices to the farmers, so we're willing to pay the high prices." He said they shell out for an extra manual sorting of beans in Costa Rica, which they believe results in roasting a much higher percentage of beans without defects. "One sour bean can ruin a whole pot of coffee," said Schutz. Starbucks says it sourced 545 million pounds of green beans from 29 countries in 2012 and paid an average price of $2.56 per pound. The ubiquitous coffee giant — there are 18,000 outlets worldwide — also said 93 per cent of its coffee was ethically sourced last year. Tim Hortons, meanwhile, has introduced its Partnership Blend, and says a portion of sales will be directed to improving the sustainability practices of its partner producers in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Tim Hortons issued a statement in mid-September saying it sells two billion cups every year, enough to fill 26,504 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The company also boasts about its roast, saying only three people in the world are aware of the "exact blend and roasting fingerprint" of their coffee, and that their team of coffee masters taste-test more than 75,000 cups each year to ensure quality. Sustainability isn't just about paying more. It's about volume and best practices. "No matter how good the coffee you are growing, you need to get a certain amount out of each hectare to make it work, no matter the price you're getting," said Sandy McAlpine, president of the Coffee Association of Canada. "There is a commodity price for Arabica, and the vast majority of coffee in Canada is Arabica. That price is about $1.17 a pound. But not a lot of coffee is bought at that price. Most is bought at a differential that is based on quality and availability." Given that quality and sustainability themes abound, and the messaging can be confusing, how does Transcend, a company with two locations and 35 employees, set itself apart? Well, they roast those high-quality beans in a south-side facility not far from their Garneau café. And they do what they can on the marketing end. Transcend invested money and time building an online retail presence that was recognized recently by Canada Post for its efficacy. Transcend was a finalist in the multi-channel retailer category in an awards program. Schutz has piloted Transcend's multi-channel effort, which includes non- stop video messaging inside their two locations and a weekly newsletter, which he writes, that is emailed every Saturday morning to more than 3,000 subscribers. They also accompany online orders of beans with personal messages for customers and offer free shipping on orders over $35, an initiative that costs them money. "About a year ago we focused on our online presence. We really paid a lot of attention to it," said Schutz. As a result, online sales now represent about 10 per cent of Transcend's total sales. More encouraging, online sales are up about 30 per cent over last year. "It could potentially be half our sales." A cursory look around the Garneau café suggests the way to a Transcend customer is through his or her hard drive. The entire east wall banquette was occupied by customers working on laptops and occasionally sipping a beverage. Wi-Fi is important, but Starbucks was in that game long ago and Tim Hortons offers it now. Though Transcend has to compete on quality, sustainability and multi-channel marketing with multinational giants and small local shops, the coffee thirst in Canada is unquenchable and should allow them to occupy a comfortable niche. The 2011 Coffee Drinking Trends in Canada report said 64 per cent of adults drink an average of 2.7 cups per day for a total of 14 billion cups per year. Of those drinkers, 54 per cent are aware of Fair Trade practices and 35 per cent have purchased Fair Trade coffee. What's more, Transcend identifies its customers along psychographic, not demographic lines, Schutz said. "People who care about how food tastes, those are the people who get us." aroma of SuCCeSS By Joel Schlesinger For Postmedia News Calgary - Invici is a Calgary tech startup that doesn't want to revolutionize the classroom. The maker of interactive educational technologies is looking to make the school experience more accessible. Invici has only been in business for a little more than a year, but its interactive, touch screen technology for the visually impaired is already generating interest among educators. "Our target market is the classroom where teachers are working with visually impaired students," said Invici chief executive officer Douglas Hagedorn, who came up with the concept while working on his master's thesis in geography at the University of Calgary. "We've developed a tactile computer system - a user interface - for the blind that allows you to feel through a physical representation of features that are displayed on an LCD screen." Invici is just one of several high-tech startups in Calgary, a city more renowned for oil and gas deals than for nurturing technology firms. But there have been a number of high-tech successes over the past decade, including intellectual property licensing firm Wi-LAN, now based in Ottawa, and iStockphoto, which is still headquartered in the city. Today, Calgary is home to several promising tech companies, from life science firms like Zephyr Sleep Technologies, a maker of innovative equipment for sleep apnea, to body positive social media app maker, BeauCoo. While information technology and life science firms have flourished over the last few years, they represent a fraction of the abundant high-tech firms in the Stampede city, says the head of technology business incubator, Innovate Calgary. "I'm not really a big fan of the comparison to Silicon Valley," said Peter Garrett, president of the non-profit, which is funded by the Alberta government and the University of Calgary. "I prefer the idea of having our own tech sector's reason for existence." And its raison d'tre has been the oil and gas sector. "This is an area where we can absolutely be a world leader," said Garrett. While supportive of all types of high-tech companies in the city, Innovate Calgary's strategic focus has been developing firms providing innovative technologies for the exploration, development and production of oil and gas. "We can become the Silicon Valley of energy technology, whereas in the IT and life sciences areas we'll certainly have our share of niche successes, but relative to other areas of the world we won't have the same broad level of success," Garrett said. One firm that has found success through serving oil and gas is Hifi Engineering, a maker of fibre- optics technology. "It's basically using fibre optics to monitor the flow of fluids in the production of oil and gas or the transportation of hydrocarbons, like pipeline operations," said John Hull, founder and president of the Calgary firm. "We turn fibre optics into an acoustic sensor and it's much more sensitive, allowing you to monitor several kilometres simultaneously." The company has been in business for six years and, like many high-tech, energy-sector-focused firms, it has moved from the startup to the commercial phase. "Several of our technologies are commercial, installed in 500 wells to date." Hull says Calgary is the place to be for technology firms, with innovative ideas offering applications for the energy sector because the local investment community is very savvy. "Several of the major companies have innovation funds that we've been able to tap," he said. "They often have their own funding facilities." Calgary Herald SiliCon valley, Calgary STyle: Transcend Coffee founder Poul Mark in his Garneau Coffee Shop in Edmonton. Photo by John Lucas/Edmonton Journal Douglas Hagedorn, founder of Invici. Photo by Adrian Shellard City's small, but innovative high-tech sector a hotbed for startups aiming to change the world

• Cover