Previously, I’ve talked about some of the ways we were investing in Ninja Goat, to try and improve our working environment, make fatCoffee even better, and keep up with soaring demand.
While we have some good things in the works – a better kitchen in the city, where most of our team lives, new packing machinery steaming its way towards a nearby port – we also made some fantastic mistakes.
I was personally really proud of how these packets came out. The look of them was far more in keeping with what I thought made for a better first impression.
Unfortunately, as is often the case with first impressions, these new packets failed to live up to the hype. They were difficult to open when we tried to open them, which slowed down our production. They’re actually slightly smaller on the inside, and only hold about 90% of what our previous packets did. The material is thicker, so they tended to squeeze shut during sealing, resulting in poor seals and spills.
Oh, and they’re a pain to open when you need to actually get the fatCoffee out.
So, yeah: a big disappointment.
But as I often say: there is no failure, only data!
And luckily, we’ve been able to quickly switch back to our old packets. But I was never happy with the look of those – we have been hand-stamping each packet with a rubber stamp and quick drying ink. When we were making 500 or 1000 servings at a time this wasn’t too big a deal. But sit down to stamp 10,000 packets, and you quickly start looking for a better way.
And, luckily, we found it:
Stickering each pouch is still time consuming, and only a stop-gap until we get our packing machine and outfit it with pre-printed packing material, but I’m pretty happy with how these look:
And I have it on good authority that using sticker-dispensing machine to peel off stickers one at a time can be incredibly satisfying, even meditative.
And Another Thing
You may have noticed: IT’S FALLLLLL!!!!!
(At least, here in the northern hemisphere, it’s Fall. And it Pennsylvania, it’s “Fall”. I’m told that others refer to this season as “Autumn”.)
But regardless of what you call it, I think we can all agree: it’s my favorite season of the year. (See what I did there? You literally can’t disagree, because it’s my opinion.)
If you are of a mind to enjoy the “official” flavors of the season, let me humbly suggest our Pumpkin Spice and Mocha Orange fatCoffee flavors. Unlike other folks’ seasonal flavors, our’s get their aroma and taste from actual spices and oils (never extracts, “natural flavorings” or other weird stuff.) In the case of Pumpkin Spice, we use ground organic cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and all spice. Our Mocha Orange uses cold-pressed organic orange oil.