South Carolina retailer treading on uncommon grounds

Hardware Retailing, Nov, 2007

Although many retailers keep a pot of coffee on for customers to sip when they come in. not many hardware stores carry their own brand of coffee so customers can brew, their own back at home.

John Royall, owner of Royall Ace Hardware n Mount Pleasant. S.C., helped found Their-Bucks Coffee L.L.C and sells the product in his store For customers who want freshly ground coffee our don't have a grinder, the store can grind it for them as well.

"It's been a fun thing to do, and it's really good coffee," Royall says

But the coffee s more than a unique niche for Royall, as a portion of the java sales also goes to neap impoverished coffee farmers in Nicaragua, where he and others involved in Their-Bucks buy the beans.

Royall explains that he was on a mission in Nicaragua with a group from his church. They found that coffee farmers there were often underpaid by larger coffee companies. Their Bucks started buying coffee directly from the farmers in El Porvenir Coffee Cooperative, paying them more than they were getting with other companies. Some of the profits from the coffee go back to the farmers In the form of grants.

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After the coffee is purchased, it is roasted and bagged for Their-Bucks in Spartanburg, S. C., by another company. It is sold at Royall Ace and other stores around the area. "We're hoping to expand and do more with the coffee, and we hope to eventually do the roasting ourselves," Royall says.