Espresso for a Cause

Interview with Jason Patton
Photos courtesy of Fire Department Espresso

Jason Patton, vp of Fire Department Espresso and star of the Fire Department Chronicles video sequence, discusses his company’s passion for enjoyable, handcrafted espresso and supporting first responders.

How did Fire Department Espresso advance about?

Luke Schneider, our CEO, was a shipboard firefighter in the navy, the place he fell in treasure with espresso. After his carrier ended, he met his future significant other, Kate, at a café, and they bonded over the drink. They began experimenting with roasting and started Fire Department Espresso in Rockford, Illinois, in 2016.

What varieties of espresso attain you supply?

We have a host of sunshine, medium, and dark roasts and espressos as well as a spirit-infused line that’s extremely popular. We also supply ready-to-drink and single-aid alternate choices. Plus, each month, subscribers to our Espresso of the Month Membership net to try various single-foundation blends from Africa, India, or South America; via the club, we give back a fraction of sales to the farmers in these areas. Swear us about how your company helps firefighters: Luke and I, being in hearth carrier, know what happens when certainly one of our maintain is injured, gets sick, or has a mental health challenge— a lot of instances, there’s no one there to assist them pay payments as they net well. To present a boost to them, we started the Fire Department Espresso Charitable Foundation. By it, we give a fraction of the proceeds from Fire Department Espresso to organizations that specifically in discovering and distribute funds for such situations.

As far as hearth departments, our Fire Department Shirt Membership and Fire Department Espresso Membership subscriptions allow us to present a boost to individual FDs by selling products with their custom-made branding. We perambulate to local hearth departments, bag one thing that represents them well, create their shirts and coffees, and return a percentage of the sales immediately to them. For example, we have been able to ship $14,000 to a hearth department in Hawaii to assist these that misplaced their homes at some stage in the 2023 Maui fires.

You promote FDC gear, stickers, and various merchandise as well. What was the impetus for it?

In addition to making excessive-quality espresso products for an affordable tag, we wanted to be a standard of living brand that of us may emotionally join with; that’s also why we’ve leaned so powerful into social media videos. We want of us to wear our gear and really feel appropriate about it because of what it represents.

What’s the inspiration in the back of these videos?

How attain you balance humor with purpose? In 2015, I created Fire Department Chronicles as a way to share a firefighter’s life via humor. After I began working here, we started doing similar videos as a team and snappy realized that emotional connections to brands are what really pressure them—there’s a incompatibility between any individual being aware of your brand and supporting it relentlessly. Nonetheless we wanted to present one thing more to of us: daily humor. So we created the FDC videos, hoping to assist of us laugh for a few minutes.

They’ve been monstrously profitable. Firefighters, paramedics, and first responders immediately related to them, for optimistic, but so many others did as well. And, as you said, they’re no longer actual for laughs. There’s a small fraction of educational information in the back of each one.

Fire Department Espresso is veteran owned and made in America. What does that mean to the company?

Many veterans have it complicated. They utilize prolonged classes of time serving our country and normally reenter society with few opportunities to excel originate air of being firefighters or law enforcement officials. It was important, especially to Luke, to present a boost to these that quit so powerful for our country. That’s why we created our Shellback Espresso: as an homage to anyone who turns into a shellback in the navy.

Made in the USA is extremely important to us too. It means forgoing the cheaper way of manufacturing overseas to no longer ideal present high-notch products but also make consume of of us in places savor Rockford, South Carolina, and Texas.

How has the company’s foray into retail gone?

We opened a small local storefront at the quit of 2023 so of us may consult with us and aquire products. Nonetheless going in Walmart in 2022 was a whole various beast. By June of 2023, we have been in 1,000 shops, and last year we have been in 10,000. We quiz to be in 15,000 shops by the quit of 2025.

What has the response been to your espresso and mission?

Overwhelmingly obvious. The #1 reason of us purchase our espresso is that it tastes fantastic. We may advance out with the ideal videos and have the ideal giveback mission, but if the espresso doesn’t taste amazing, no one’s going to purchase it again. That’s why we’re so passionate about it.

And, as mentioned earlier, of us treasure the videos simply because they brighten their days and teach them one thing. That’s such a frosty thing because education and comedy may detached be synonymous, especially since humor helps us retain information better. So of us will bear in mind no longer ideal what they learned but also that by supporting us, they’re serving to to present back to these that achieve their lives and health on the line every day.

For more data, consult with firedeptcoffee.com