Fair Trade Community Cafés

Ray Merriam is a born entrepreneur. His first business at age 12 – selling French fries from his grandparents' Cape Breton coal barn – was shut down by the Health Department but that didn't stop him. At 18, he studied culinary arts in New York City which led to owning a few restaurants. A multi-million dollar transport business, a successful business college, and a consulting company came next, followed by a stint as a municipal politician. Four years as an award-winning marketer for the Millbrook First Nation Power Centre Business Park directly preceded his latest successful venture, the Fair Trade Community Café. 

Specializing in organic and fairly traded coffee beans from the Nova Scotian co-operative coffee roaster "Just Us", Merriam's four locations around the province are doing a brisk business. Not only can customers drink ethical coffee in unique "old world café" atmospheres in Truro, Bible Hill, and New Glasgow, they can also indulge in healthy, homemade food, produced by local farmers and businesses.
 
"We've had incredible feedback from the public about what we're doing. These are really socially conscious folks and they want to support the fair trade movement and impact how farmers in other parts of the world are being treated," he says. "We're getting thank you cards from people who used to live in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa. They're so happy they can finally get a latté or a cappuccino in Truro!" Merriam adds that part of his customers' social conscience has to do with the environment so they're also enthused about Merriam's commitment to green building practices.
 
Each and every café has been built with 98 per cent pre-existing and recycled materials, including kitchen equipment, fixtures, furnishings, building materials, and even wall paint. This time-consuming practice means that it takes five months or more to open up a new location, but it also results in thousands of pounds of "stuff" diverted from the waste stream. Merriam's commitment to being environmentally friendly has resulted in being twice nominated by his customers for a provincial Resource Recovery Fund Board award.
 
Since the opening of the first location on Truro's Prince Street in 2005, Merriam has been hard at work on the other three locations. Both the Bible Hill and New Glasgow locations were opened in 2008. As a resident of Bible Hill, Merriam is especially excited about this location. "People really wanted me to open a café there. It's a bedroom community of Truro, so there's a lot of commuting and there's also a lot of fast food. People wanted a place to sit down and get a good cup of coffee."
 
Merriam drove back and forth every day, always keeping his eyes open for a good location. Finally, one came available in a plaza on one of the busiest streets in Colchester County and directly across from a Tim Hortons. "A lot of people asked if I knew what I was doing. They thought I'd get gobbled up. But you know what? This is an alternative to Tim Hortons for a whole different league. They haven't hurt our business and we haven't hurt theirs any either." 
 
The other exciting bit of news with the Bible Hill café is that Merriam's girlfriend has decided to take a leap into the café business as well. After 10 years as a journalist, Lynn Curwin is this location's new manager. "Lynn has been a vegetarian since she was a child and has always been environmentally conscious," says Merriam. He reports that Lynn's personal mission is to make the new café even more of a "green" business by focusing on energy efficiency, environmentally friendly cleaning products, local purchasing and waste reduction. "She's doing a great job managing and overseeing the new business and making our concept even more sustainable and green," says Merriam. "We are all very proud of her taking this giant leap and I think she will be a great asset to the future growth plans of the company."
 
For this born entrepreneur who routinely works 16-17 hours a day, the future of the Fair Trade Community Café looks bright indeed. "My ultimate goal is to raise enough capital to have 12 cafes throughout Atlantic Canada." Stretching from Saint John to Sydney, the restaurants would be run as franchises. To that end, Merriam attended the biggest franchise show in North America this year in Florida where he learned a lot about best practices and came back with some good ideas.
 
From an observer's perspective, it doesn't look like Merriam needs any help with bright ideas, especially when it comes to marketing. For the last few years, he's been touring about the Truro area in an old Canada Post Priority Courier cube van that he bought at an auction. The café name and logo are clearly displayed and plans are underway to power the vehicle with used vegetable oil.
 
Passion and energy are two things Merriam has in abundance and if there's one thing that he's passionate about – besides a good cup of Fair Trade coffee – it's community. He's gone to great lengths to make sure that his cafés are hubs in the places they reside. At each café there are regular open mike nights and singer/songwriter circles. He's also the first to donate money, coffee or food to community events and charities. In fact, Merriam created the downtown Truro summer music festival, now in its third year running and growing every year.
 
With a profit margin of 48-52 per cent, Merriam is doing a good business in Nova Scotia. He credits loyal customers and hard work for his success, in addition to excellent word of mouth. "My grandfather came to Nova Scotia because he thought it was a great place to live, do business, and raise a family. He was right," says Merriam. "Nova Scotia is the best place in the world to start up and grow any new business concept. The opportunities are limitless and when you do a good job and help people get what they want, they talk, and all that good stuff comes back to you."