Starbucks puts OCS back on the fast track

ELLIOT MARAS, EDITOR

Sid Kahn has to think hard to remember a time that was as exciting as the present. The long-time Chicago area OCS operator's sales jumped 12 percent in 1993. The reason: specialty coffee. Specifically, Starbucks coffee. Kahn's company, B & F Coffee Service, Northbrook, Ill. is the exclusive Starbucks distributor for OCS in greater Chicago.

Kahn says specialty coffee will do for OCS in the Nineties what the jump in green coffee prices did in the Seventies. For those who don't remember, OCS sales boomed.

'It's fun to sell coffee again,' Kahn beamed from his spacious, tastefully decorated office. With Starbucks as his specialty brand, Kahn now gets between 7 and 8 cents per cup on almost a third of his sales. (The industry average is 5 cents per cup.) 'We sell the coffee pretty much for what the (Starbucks) stores are selling it for.'

Kahn fields between 25 and 40 inquiries per week nowadays, over a third more than he used to. And while Starbucks has boosted his company's visibility, sales are increasing for all of his products. This in a market that continues to suffer corporate layoffs. If the economy were better, he estimated his 1993 sales would have grown 20 percent.

'People (customers) are starting to ask for better coffees,' he explained. 'Starbucks has really done a lot for the coffee industry. They are the ones really getting people interested in good coffee.'

How did this lucrative relationship with the nation's leading specialty coffee retailer come about?

Starbucks stores had been in the Chicago market for five years before Kahn, one of the largest OCS operators in the area, received a call from the Chicago Starbucks office just more than a year ago. Starbucks was also talking with other Chicago area OCS operators about carrying their coffee.

Kahn immediately saw the …