REGIONAL

Dan Goldman – director of sales and marketing, Good As Gold Coffee

Staff Writer
Telegram & Gazette
Dan Goldman of Good as Gold Coffee in Worcester. [Photo/Matt Wright]

For over 40 years, Dan Goldman’s family has been part of the coffee business, operating across Massachusetts. They pride themselves on trying to provide the best, most transparent coffee experience possible, distributing brews and blends for the home, the office or the restaurant, and on selling coffee by origin rather than brand. The company imports beans from Colombia, Panama, Hawaii, Guatemala, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Burundi and other places. They seek to educate their customers on the roasting techniques of what they’re drinking, and offering teas, smoothies, and equipment for purchase. Good As Gold Coffee has been located at 115 Green St. in Worcester since 1983 and has 14 employees. It remains a family business, with Mr. Goldman acting as director of sales and marketing, his sons Mike and Jay working in sales and marketing and warehouse and production respectively, and his wife, Pat Goldman, serving as company president. The company was recently recipient of the Better Business Bureau's 2017 Central Massachusetts Award for Marketplace Excellence in the small businesses category.

What unique spin did you bring to your family’s business?

While I was in college, I was selling coffee out of my dormitory room and setting up accounts at Springfield College. While I was in college, I took a year of independent study in Europe, and I noticed that coffee was handled a lot differently than in the United States: Whereas in this country they sold coffee by brand or jingle, in Europe they were selling coffee by origin, and they got into more descriptions of the coffee. So when I returned I had graduated, I was an environmental studies major as well as my wife, and we opened up a coffee and tea store alongside our wholesale coffee business on Main Street in Worcester, near Clark University. We sold coffee by the pound of beans and by origin, so we were kind of ahead of ourselves – everyone was selling brand names, and we were trying to sell coffee by origin.

How is your coffee prepared differently than traditional methods?

A traditional coffee is roasted in a drum roaster. There are critical states in the process of roasting coffee – in a drum roaster, you have multiple things going on at the same time, conduction, radiation, and convection and simultaneously heating the coffee. What happens is that it’s virtually impossible from roast to roast to make a consistent coffee that way. With the technology that we have, called Advanced Air Roasting technology, and we’re the first in the U.S. to have this particular piece of equipment, and what it allows us to do is control the variables in the convection stage and be able to monitor and control how heat is applied to the coffee bean. It’s a very precise way of roasting coffee: You don’t have as many processes going on at the same time, and this type of technology is considered the cleanest and the best way to make a clean-tasting cup of coffee.

What are your methods for attracting younger coffee drinkers?

Younger coffee drinkers are very excited about what we’re doing, learning more about the products. For the younger coffee drinkers, part of their makeup is, “I want to know about this, how it’s done, give me the best you have.” They want to be educated, and it’s our pleasure to do that and invite them in to see the process. We also reach out to a lot younger people because they’re online, and we have a presence online. We launched our super-premium coffee called Arius Coffee, and you can find that at airiscoffee.com, and we also have our website goodasgold.com, as well as Facebook and Instagram. The younger generation is very receptive. The challenge for us is the older coffee drinkers. My generation always asks, “What is the price?” before they’ve even tried the coffee. That’s harder, so we’re trying to educate the older generation to enjoy coffee and pay maybe a little bit more for a better experience. It’s a better value than buying a coffee for a lower price that you don’t enjoy. Coffee’s not coffee, wine’s not wine, beer’s not beer – you can enjoy a variety of different tastes and flavors.

Why do you believe the direction of the coffee industry has shifted and put more focus on detail?

I don’t think people were satisfied with the coffee they were getting, and when specialty coffee roasters came into being, it was embraced — whether it was Starbucks or Peet’s or coffee from Seattle or California. You’re seeing a trend that there are a lot of specially roasters, just like specialty beer breweries, and people are understanding that’s it’s fresh, it’s better, and experiencing some very unique coffees that really they haven’t seen. It’s part of the whole farm-to-table movement. It fits right in with knowing who your producers are, the story behind it, how it’s produced, and the younger generation will always ask question after question after question. They like good food.

How did it feel to be awarded the Better Business Bureau Marketplace Excellence Award?

I’m honored, and it felt good because we try our best to live up to what that award stands for, which is ethics in business, being good for your community, good for your employees, good for your customers. We’ve always believed that any business relationship has to be a win-win-win situation in order to work. We want to be transparent with our customers, we look forward to bringing our customers into our business, show them what we’re doing and their own selected and personalized products. We’ve always tried to educate people, so getting an award from the BBB which says that, “You guys are doing a good job, and you’re respected!” means a lot to us because that’s always been the core of our business.

Compiled by correspondent Erin Bassler.