Here’s the Dirt : Just the right blend
A Kootenai County mom-and-pop coffee company will start selling its fair-trade gourmet organic blends through T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores.
The 4-year-old Nectar of Life Coffee Company, based in the Coeur d’Alene area, just shipped 10,500 bags of coffee to six distribution centers that will disperse coffees to test-stores nationwide. T.J. Maxx and Marshalls are part of the TJX Companies, which operates 2,300 stores worldwide.
“Those should be hitting the stores now,” said Martin Jennings, who owns the business with his wife, Hannah.
Five signature blends, made from fair-trade Arabica coffee beans from several regions, are both kosher and organic certified, and will sell for $5.99 for 10-ounce bags. Having a big order enabled Jennings to do some creative math.
“To make it worthwhile at this price point, I really had to crunch the numbers,” Jennings said. “We run on a thin margin and we’re really efficient.”
To put the magnitude of the order in perspective, Jennings said, the business typically roasts 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of coffee beans per year. It roasted 8,000 for the initial T. J. Maxx and Marshalls order.
Jennings is a former winemaker for Arbor Crest Wine Cellars and has a degree in enology and viticulture from the University of California at Davis. He decided to put his sensory blending skills to work on coffee after sampling a number of disappointing organic coffees.
“There was a lot of really bad organic fair-trade coffee originally,” he said. “Our goal from day one was to develop truly gourmet blends that are organic fair-trade.”
The small company started buying coffee beans from fair-trade importers, such as Elan Organic Coffees. The importers pay living wages for organic beans grown on small farms in third-world countries.
Today Nectar of Life Coffee Company has 20 different blends selling through Yoke’s Fresh Markets, URM Cash & Carry, Huckleberry’s Natural Market and Lorien Herbs & Natural Foods Inc. and the Web site, www.nectaroflife.com.The company joined with Catholic Relief Services to raise funds for a project to improve infrastructure, schools and medical services for poor rural communities where many coffee farmers live. When CRS supporters order off the company’s Web site, they can select an option that earmarks a 2 percent donation to CRS. For every bag of Nectar of Life sold throughout the stores, $1 is donated to CRS.
The couple handles every aspect of operations, from roasting to designing the label, a colorful hummingbird flying near a coffee plant.
Adds Jennings; “We also stock our own stores.”
New retirement community planned for Sandpoint
First Lutheran Church of Sandpoint plans to build a $14 million retirement complex next to the church.
The congregation donated a portion of the 6.5-acre church property, at 526 S. Olive St. and west of Memorial Field, for the project. Ecumen, a Shoreview, Minn.-based Lutheran senior housing organization, is a partner in the senior development.
“This has generated a lot of excitement and enthusiasm not only in our church but in the community,” said the Rev. Dave Olson, pastor of the congregation.
“There is a very strong need in our community currently for senior housing options,” he said.
Representatives have met with the city, he said, and plan to break ground this summer and be open in summer or fall of 2008.
The three-story complex will include 60 one- and two-bedroom units, with floor plans from 571- to 967-square feet, as well as a community room, library and media center, hair-styling salon and walking paths. Olson said people living in those units will get services catering to their needs.
It will also have a 27 rooms devoted to people who can no longer live independently and need help due to dementia and other serious medical conditions.
Olson estimates that rooms in the 60-unit catered living section will start at $1,400 to $2,000 per month and the memory care unit will be about $4,500 monthly.
Help for low-income homebuyers
Community Frameworks, an agency that helps first-time, low-income households build and purchase homes, is looking for people who need assistance purchasing a house. The agency combines low-interest mortgages with government subsidies to provide affordable loans and helps program participants earn down payments.
A variety of home styles and sizes are available through HomeStarts. Affordable home construction begins at Greenfield Estates in northeast Spokane this spring. Construction begins later this year at Takoda Park on the West Plains and at Community Frameworks’ new mixed-income condo development, Pioneer Park Place, on the lower South Hill near downtown Spokane.
Potential buyers must earn 80 percent of the area median income or less for affordable housing opportunities in Spokane and in the West Plains in Spokane County. To find out if you are eligible to help build your own home or condo, call (509) 484-6733, ext. 117 or learn more by visiting www.communityframeworks.org.
Crown West Realty expands holdings
Crown West Realty, the full-service real estate investment, development and management firm that owns and operates Spokane Business & Industrial Park, recently purchased a $14.4 million, 118,000-square-foot office complex in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Spokane Business & Industrial Park is boasting two new tenants. Hollister-Stier has leased about 20,000 square feet of space for warehouse storage and La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries has leased 15,840 square feet for warehousing and distribution of furniture.