CEO - Doug Cooper - Goldberry Roasting Company

Doug Cooper is the founder and owner of Goldberry Roasting Company. The business has two locations, Ashland on Franklin Ave and the other, on the Oberlin College Campus. Doug founded the business back in 2010 and they have grown over the last 14 years. Cooper said, they sold coffee to people in 43 states in 2023 and roast coffee beans from all over the world. Cooper's son, Pete helps run the business, which has around 50 employees. Doug shares his really cool story, and about his family, on the podcast.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The CEO you should know. Broughtto you by Roby Foster Miller Eric Insurance.
This week's CEO Doug Cooper, founderand owner of Goldberry Roasting Company.
Doug good morning, Good morning Aaron. Thanks for having me this morning.
Absolutely great to see you. I'veheard the name the Goldberry Roasting Company.

(00:22):
Excited to learn the story. Solet's begin at the top. If somebody
doesn't know about you, your company, yeah, tell us about you.
Go okay, Well, Goldberry RoastingCompany is we not only do like coffee
shop kind of retail work. Wehave wholesale work, so we roast coffee.
We distributed wholesale to other businesses.We sell online at Goldberry roasting dot

(00:47):
com. Last year we sold toforty three different states individuals in forty three
different states. But then we alsohave coffee shops. We have a coffee
shop in Ashland. We also havea coffee shop on the Oberlin College campus
up in b'lind, Ohio. Weemploy about fifty people and our lane,
if you will, is craftsman levelcoffee where we roast artisanally to make sure

(01:11):
that the origin flavors from where thecoffee has grown comes out in the roast
so that when people taste different kindsof coffee, they can taste where it's
from. And that's kind of calleda third wave coffee enterprise. So our
lane is not to crank out folgersor kind of the low end high caffeine,
but more nuanced coffee and coffee drinksas well. All right, terrific

(01:36):
to learn this morning about Doug Cooper, founder and owner of Goldberry Roasting Company.
So when did this all get started? How long have you guys been
in operation? Could you give usthat story? Yeah, it started in
my basement as a cottage business inI incorporated in June of twenty ten,

(01:56):
so fourteen, almost fourteen years ago. Started in my bay. Meant I
had these little home roasters that Iused, and people liked my coffee,
and I decided, well, ifyou like it, I'll sell it to
you. And it kind of turned. I learned about coffee. I love
coffee. I researched a lot aboutcoffee, where it comes from, the
farming practices, how to roast itright. So I accumulated a lot of

(02:19):
knowledge. And then you know,so not only could I provide coffee to
people, but I could provide kindof here's the experience, and here's where
it comes from, and here arethe farmers that grow it, and that
kind of thing. So it kindof took off. I moved Goldberry to
a smaller, one room, littlerental place with a little bit bigger roaster,
and it got to be it waslike my third job at the time,

(02:42):
so in the evenings and weekends Iwas spending all my time roasting.
And at that point my son Pete, who's now a partner of mine in
the business, came to me andsaid, would you consider me joining you?
And we really do this, andwe thought about it, prayed about
talk to our wives because we knowlike sometimes working with family isn't the best
for family relationships, and we agreedto let it, to give it a

(03:07):
try. So in two thousand,nineteen October of twenty nineteen, like three
months before the COVID hurricane happened,we opened on Claremont Avenue in Ashland and
it went well. In COVID.We kind of got really savvy about how
to continue business. We considered ourselvesessential and we delivered coffee, like a

(03:30):
cup of coffee within five miles forfree and did that kind of thing.
So we really built kind of anice base. People trusted us, respected
us, knew we would be therethrough thick and thin. So we grew,
expanded, added Oberlin in our Claremontlocation, we just outgrew it,
and so recently then we moved ouroperations to Franklin Avenue in Ashland, which

(03:55):
was like if I was younger,I could have thrown a stone from our
old place to the new place.And we've been there since January and our
business has exploded. We have afive thousand square foot facility now where we
have two roasters, the ability todo wholesale packaging, grinding, you know,
bulk shipments, that kind of thing. And then a really really nice

(04:18):
cafe where we serve high end coffeedrinks. You can get black coffee,
but you can also get lattes thatare done in the Italian way, some
light grabbing go food in that kindof thing. Awesome to learn the story
of a great local company in Ashland, Goldberry Roasting Company. We have the
founder, the owner in studio andis Doug Cooper. He is this week's

(04:41):
CEO. You should know, allright, So talk about varieties of coffee.
Yeah, and I'm sure you haveplenty but tell us a little bit
about that. Sure. Yeah.One of the things people don't realize it
until they kind of get into coffeea little bit more is that coffee is
identified by the country or the regionand from where it's grown. So if
you see a coffee that says Mexico, like, people don't realize that that

(05:05):
means it's from Mexico. We haveprobably twelve different origins like that, everything
from Mexico to Columbia, Brazil,Costa Rica, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sumatra,
Papua New Guinea and some others thatwe roast all the time is single
origins. And each of those,if roasted rite, which is kind of

(05:26):
our thing, If roasted rite,they taste different. And you should be
able to taste Costa Rica at GoldberryRoasting Company if it's roasted rite, and
it should taste similar to Costa Ricain Ashland, Oregon at a coffee shop.
And because of those nuances, thoseflavor profiles like wine or beer,
you know, there's inherent flavor profilesthat come from the dirt, the altitude,

(05:46):
the latitude, and the climate.People kind of get preferences in the
origins, and then we also doblends. So we have a blend that
we have refined for espresso drinks andwe sell that, you know, all
over northern Ohio. And our goalis to roast coffee so that people can
actually taste the nuances of the coffee, identify where they're from, and be

(06:11):
able to understand that these are farmersin different parts of the world that have
grown coffee, put their lives intoit, and they deliver it to us
in the US, and if wedon't mess it up, it will reflect
what they've done on their family farms. So that's our approach, and people
like the idea that we kind oftie back to farms. Where's it from?
And how could I put a pinon a location? Yes, she

(06:34):
could, and in some of thesefarms you could go and have coffee with
the farmer. So that's kind ofpeople really like that and that's been really
helpful for us as we grow.Yeah, really cool to hear about all
this now. And I have aquestion just pops into my mind. So
you mentioned you get you know,coffee beansm all over the world. Do
they come in? Talk about theroasting process? How long does that take?
How does that work for true socoffee when it comes to us is

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called green coffee. That doesn't lookmuch like roasted coffee. It's a little
green, looks like a split peebefore it's been cooked. And the roasting
process, we have machines that arespecifically made to heat the coffee beans,
which really seeds. So the combinationof the heat and the time that you
roast and the air flow that youadd, and the speed of the drum

(07:17):
and the height of the flame,all of those things come together differently for
each origin, and through that wecall a roast cycle. Through those roast
cycles, we kind of deliver theright flavor profile. Typically a batch takes
about fifteen to seventeen minutes, butwe do like forty pounds at a time
and one of our roasters and thirtypounds in another, and so we can

(07:40):
between our two roasters, we cando in an eight hour day about two
thousand pounds of coffee. And Iwish we were selling two thousand pounds a
day of coffee, but we're goingto get there. But that's the roast
process. When it's done being heatedat the appropriate time, then we dump
it into a cooler and that coolerpulls air through the beans. And it
agitates so that it cools it asquickly as possible because you want to lock

(08:03):
that flavor profile in. When that'sdone, we put it in bulk containers
until it's ready to bag or toserve. And most of our coffee,
you probably wouldn't find anything on ourshelf that's more than seven days old.
We roast it very fresh. Andthat's another benefit to someone like us is
if you're in Mansfield, Wooster Madina, you can get coffee from us that's

(08:24):
been roasted in the last couple ofdays and it doesn't get any better than
that. Awesome, awesome. Nowagain, Doug Cooper is joining us.
He is founder owner of Goldberry RoastingCompany in Ashland. This week's CEO.
You should know people you told mecan stop in and buy that at your
location in Ashland, but they canbuy it online. Talk about the options

(08:46):
you have to bill to purchase.Okay, Well, our website is Goldberry
Roasting dot com and it's very robustand kind of kind of a good experience
to go there and you can seeall of the different origins that we have
as far our coffee beans. Youcan buy twelve ounce bags, sixteen ounce
bags You can also order ahead throughToast. You can order so if you

(09:07):
want to pick up bags of coffee, or if you want to get a
latte and you know you're going tobe there in fifteen minutes, you can
order ahead and we can have itready for you. That all happens on
the website. We have loyalty programs. Last year we were honored and privileged
enough to sell coffee to people inforty three states in the United States.
We have really really good marketing,We have really good relationships and networks that

(09:30):
have gotten our name out there.You sell the coffee the first time,
it's great, but you want tosell it the second time, and we
have developed repeat customers in those statesbecause of the quality of our coffee,
and so we do a lot throughour website. But also people can show
up our hours, you know,or usually seven to five. People can
show up. They can buy coffeeand bags, they can buy a drink,

(09:52):
they can take it to go.We also have a drive through now
in our main office, our mainroastery, so we make it very flexible,
lots of different ways to interact withour product. All right, terrific
to learn this morning about a localcompany Goldberry Roasting Company founder and owner,
and this week's CEO is with us, Doug Cooper. All right, let's
find out a little bit more aboutyou. And you're talking all about your

(10:13):
company, but let's find out aboutDoug. Let's step back to the very
beginning. If you would tell uswhere was Doug Cooper born? Well,
I live in Ashland, Ohio,and I was born in Ashland, Ohio.
All right, I am here.Here's the trivia that nobody probably will
care about, but I am sixthgeneration Ashland County resident native. My kids

(10:33):
and grandkids are. We have upto ninth generation Ashlanders. Now. Our
family arrived there in eighteen twenty two, so our family's been in Ashland County
more than two hundred years. That'sa good Doug Cooper fun fact, right,
Yeah, Doug Cooper Goldberry Roasting funfact. We are from this area
great and so we love this areaand we love the people here. Awesome

(10:54):
to hear. Where did you goto high school? Ashland high school?
Go eras All right, after highschool, tell us about that. I'm
sure there were many things before astarting goldberry roasting company, but give us
a little highlights along the way afterthat. School. Well, my wife
and I got married very young,went to college, ended up having four

(11:15):
kids. They're all adults now,our youngest is thirty five. And in
the process of kind of getting whereI am, I went to college,
got a degree in business and religion, two degrees. Where'd you go to
college? Well, I started atTaylor University in Indiana, then I transferred.
I'm also a musician, lead worshipevery Sunday still and went to Nashville

(11:37):
for a short Tom went to BelmontCollege there to kind of pursue music,
which everyone in Nashville is pursuing music, so I read the writing on the
wall. We came back to Ashlandat that point. I finished college at
Ashland University Ashley College at the time. Graduated in nineteen eighty five, and
I was still at college, mostlywith a business degree. Start out in

(11:58):
banking and then ended up in manufacturingand was with Abbot Laboratories for twelve years.
Learned a ton about processes and systemsand marketing and scheduling and planning.
I was in resource of materials management. So because a lot of circumstances,
just decided to get out of abig corporation, went to work as a
small business consultant because of all thatI learned for a few years, and

(12:24):
then one of my clients hired me. I did some work with a design
firm for about ten years while Istill did consulting. Then I did consulting
for full time. Worked at AshlandSeminary to develop a program there for six
years, continue to do business consulting. Then, you know, kind of
slowly developed this business with coffee,applied my business consulting to my business,

(12:46):
my own business, you know,put your money where your mouth is right,
and developed the business very slowly andvery deliberately. So then ended up
in this place. I still dosome consulting with some businesses on a very
limited lefel to keep my chops goingand to kind of make a little bit
more income. And in the meantime, the coffee businesses is pulling me more

(13:09):
and more into it, more andmore of my time. Well, let
me ask you this question. Iget just a couple more for you this
morning. Me great to learn thestory of Goldberry Roasting Company, the founder
and owners with us Doug Cooper againthis week's CEO. You should know did
you know growing up but you eventuallywanted to get into something to do with

(13:30):
coffee like this, what kind ofpulled you that way? Man? We
would have to do a documentary serieson all of that. I do have
some videos. So I started inall this and this will be really short.
People can go to the website.But in all of this process,
I started a nonprofit organization called CoffeeGrowing Community, and we've worked for fourteen
years in Mexico with coffee farmers andcommunities there where we're trying to help establish

(13:52):
better coffee in the meantime, helptheir communities get better in general. And
it's a long story, but CoffeeGrowing Community if people want to know.
But my main thing probably sixth orseventh grade. I tried coffee for the
first time. I was intrigued byit. I started to peel away all
the sugar and the cream that Ihad in it, and it was like
black coffee. It was horrible,and I'm thought, there's got to be

(14:13):
better than this. So I startedas a teenager and then a young twenty
something, I started looking into howdo you get how do you buy better?
Coffee? Is before the internet,so I was ordering coffee from a
lot of places, and the moreI got into it, the more I
liked it, and the more Istarted researching these communities all over the world
who are existing on growing coffee,and if their coffee goes well, the

(14:37):
community goes well. If it goesbad, the whole community suffers badly.
So I started to tie it togetherthis idea of if we can sell coffee
and buy it from these communities,then maybe we can help them economically.
And that's where really my heart sunkinto the whole thing. Like it was
this product and this craft that Iloved, but now there was a purpose
to it. So we started thisnon in Mexico and we've done work there.

(15:01):
It's been taking so much of ourcapacity that we haven't moved to any
other communities in the world, buthave really been able. The bag that
you have here on the counter isfrom the farmers in Mexico. When we
started there, their coffee was horriblebecause they were in such poverty they just
couldn't do the things to grow goodcoffee. Over fourteen years, they have
a premium, specialty grade coffee thatwe're now trying to get in other places

(15:24):
in the US. But in themeantime, we've worked with schools, we've
worked with churches, we've worked withCompassion International, we've worked with local governments
to try to help rebuild those communities, but with the backbone of coffee.
So all of that sucked me in, and we knew we needed to have
a commercial side to sell the coffeeso that we could start to help buy
coffee from farmers. So not onlydid that engage me, but it really

(15:48):
engages our customers because they like theidea that this isn't just for business for
Doug Cooper and Pete Cooper to putmoney in their pocket and get rich,
which everyone likes, but there's moreto it where we're trying to use our
resources to help these other people,and we're not charging extra for our coffee,
but people know that when they're drinkingour coffee, they're taking part in

(16:10):
that somehow, and that's what's engagedme. That's kind of my ministry in
life, although we don't call itministry. We call it business and doing
nice things for other people hopefully,But that's what has pulled my heart,
my family's heart into it, andI think our clients and our customers really
cool to hear everybody's story and thegreat story this morning about Goldberry roasting company

(16:30):
founder and owner Doug Cooper is withus before I let you go. I
heard you say wife earlier. Yeah, four kids, four kids? Correct,
tell us a little bit more whatyou do when you are not working.
It sounds like you are really busywith a lot of things. But
when Doug has a down day somespare time. What kind of hobbies do
you have? Well? Music,so, as I said before, I

(16:52):
lead worship, but I also amin a band where we do events,
so I have a vocalist a littleguitar that takes a lot of my spare
time. I love to read orat least listen to books. I am
voracious and wanting to learn more aboutthings and experience more things. And then
I have thirteen grandchildren and one greatgrandson, and so we're chasing their sporting

(17:17):
events around. Like you know,I have a grandson now who's actually in
college, and another one who acouple of grandson and granddaughter who are playing
sports at the junior, high andhigh school level. So we just make
a hobby of trying to be atall of their things and being grandparents that
show that we love our grandkids andwant to be part of their lives.
And our kids too cool. Allright. Well, as I let you

(17:40):
go, I want you to throwout some information in terms of your company.
Somebody hears about your great story.The Goldberry Roasting Company website, phone
number of somebody wants to order andhave it, you know, buy some
coffee and have it center them.How do they get all that gone?
Okay? Well, our website hasit's kind of the hub for people who

(18:02):
don't want to come into the store. So our website is Goldberry Roasting dot
com Goldberry Roasting dot com and youcan order coffee there. You can pre
order things to go and come andstop in the shop and get it and
take it to go. We havea I call it a drive around.
It's a drive through, but thewebsite is open and people can order and

(18:26):
also peruse what we have in theshop. And then our phone number if
you ever need information is eight threethree four four six seven six two six,
and people can call there and wehave people ready to help. We
have a great crew that are nothingbut good people. We're growing. We
are looking for more good people fromtime to time. So if that's something

(18:49):
of interest, but you have tobe good, you have to want to
know about coffee. You want tohave to be like part of a group
that really cares about other people firstbefore yourself. And if you if you
meet that criteria, then you cancall that number two. It's eight three
three four four six seven six twosix. All right, So they are
currently looking for good people. Andyou mentioned you have two locations, correct

(19:11):
you throw those out again for people. Yeah, so one is on the
Oberlin College campus. It's in it'sin the library at Oberlin and it's mostly
populated by students there and student employees. And then our other one is on
at twelve sixty two Franklin Avenue,Little Poem twelve sixty two Franklin Avenue in
Ashland. It's off of Claremont Avenuein Ashland. Awesome, Well, it's

(19:34):
great to learn the entire story aboutGoldberry Roasting Company, their founder and their
owner, Doug Cooper with us instudio. Again, it was great to
learn. I'd love to learn allabout your story all that you guys do.
Thank you for being with us andwe wish you continued success. Thank
you, and it's an honor thatyou you ask about our story. We

(19:55):
feel privileged to be able to tellit. Doug Cooper, founder and owner
of Goldberry Roasting Company. The CEOyou Should Know rid A Bio, see
a photo and hear the extended interviewat wm A n FM dot com.
This is John Roby of RFME Insurance. It is said that a good leader
sets the bar high because he orshe wants to reach goals and make the

(20:18):
best of their teams. We areproud to introduce you to some of the
community's leaders on the CEO series