Announcing Coffee Retail Summit, a new free virtual event and resource library for coffee retail businesses.
The Specialty Coffee Association has announced Coffee Retail Summit, a new free virtual event and resource library for coffee retail businesses.
After a year of conducting COVID-19 community impact snapshot research, gathering community insights, and listening to better understand the needs of the retail business community, the SCA is excited to release its first-ever retailer-focused line of programming, made freely available with the support of key partners. Offered twice in its first year, Coffee Retail Summit will take place April 13-14, 2021 in the US Pacific time zone and later in June in the Central European time zone.
Over the last 20 years, the growth of specialty coffee has been explosive, driven by the rise of coffee retail outlets; in 2020, this growth was brought to an abrupt halt with pandemic closure orders. Since then, the specialty coffee world has been faced with the twin challenges of survival and re-invention.
The coffee retail industry is experiencing a paradox: some retail businesses are thriving, while others are struggling to keep the lights on. Coffee consumers’ relationship with specialty coffee has changed in unprecedented ways as global lockdowns swept customers’ mode of consumption from retail spaces into homes. And, for the first time, disease transmission prevention has been added to the already long list of retailer responsibilities, prompting many businesses to seek out constantly evolving best practices to keep staff and customers safe.
Over two days, the SCA will host a series of live lectures and discussions aimed at giving coffee retail chains and coffee shops the information they need to manage the myriad challenges facing their businesses today. These will gather the latest in community insights, scientific best practice, and market research as they explore topics focused on continuing to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, the business of coffee, and the changing consumer experience.
Launching alongside the free two-day virtual event is a new online resource library filled with valuable content. Here, visitors will be able to find previously paywalled research alongside relevant lectures, podcasts, presentations, and compelling writing that will help coffee retail businesses face the challenges ahead.
”The launch of Coffee Retail Summit is particularly exciting for us as it marks the release of yet another project we have spent the past year developing in response to what we have heard from our industry," says Yannis Apostolopoulos, Chief Executive Officer of the SCA. "It puts the spotlight directly on the coffee retail business sector, a group that faced increasing challenges even before the pandemic hit, and represents our efforts to continue to decrease the number of barriers to access knowledge and resources within the global specialty coffee community.”
Coffee Retail Summit’s free-to-attend two-day virtual summit and perpetual library of resources would not be possible without the support of like-minded partners like Pacific Foods Barista Series, Coffee Retail Summit’s inaugural Title Partner, who recognize the unique struggle coffee retail businesses are facing amid the pandemic.
“We’ve seen the coffee retail community battle challenge after challenge in the past year, and being able to support this initiative created to help with those challenges, felt obvious,” says Debra Kaminski, Director of Marketing at Pacific Foods Barista Series. “We’re excited to see the summit and the platform become a real resource for coffee retailers around the globe.”
If you have any questions about the virtual summits, resource library, or anything related to event programming, please visit retail.sca.coffee or RSVP for the event here.
If you would like to partner with us to support coffee retail businesses, please contact us at retail.sca.coffee/partner.