We are Nespresso machines owners but there's no getting away from the fact that original Nespresso coffee capsules cost a fair bit. We set out to save ourselves some money and ended up with a business. This is our story.
We arrived from the UK in January 2013 with our Nespresso Essenza machine packed in our luggage. The price of original Nespresso pods made our toes curl so we headed down to the supermarket to see what the alternatives were like. We weren't impressed. Some of them didn't work. Some were too weak. Some tasted like burnt cigars. We weren't happy so we looked further afield.
We found a supplier in the UK selling some original Nespresso pods but there were 3 problems. It was a job lot of 4000 pods, they were all Decaffeinato and the pods were half a World away. We went for it!
The pods arrived and we listed them on Trade Me to see if we could flick some of them on to cover our costs. We were pleasantly surprised when they all sold out within a few weeks which got us thinking : why not do this again. Our first supplier was telling us that he had no more pods so we started considering compatible coffee capsules instead. We asked suppliers that we found on the internet to send us samples of their wares and then waited.
After a few weeks, we had received pods from around the globe : France, Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, UK, Australia and New Zealand : about 10 different suppliers in total. We set up a "local mum" market research group and provided the pods to each mum for testing and feedback. We wanted to make sure that the pods worked in all the Nespresso machine models whilst getting some good, honest, impartial feedback.
After a thousand cups of coffee, one pod stood head and shoulders above the rest : Caffesso (previously called Caffe Impresso). We high fived eachother thinking that this is the pod for us and placed our first order with the Roastery in Europe. The website soon followed (its home made using a template from RocketSpark) and we got started on promoting ourselves and the brand.
Fast forward a few short years and we are now outselling some of the major other brands with an average of half a million pods sold per year to more than 25,000 repeat clients (including some famous Kiwi faces too). We have launched two new products since : Rene, a top selling Nescafe Dolce Gusto compatible coffee capsule and Caffesso Eco Blends, a compostable and bio-degradable Nespresso compatible coffee capsule made from plants not plastic. In fact, we loved this pod so much, from late January 2021, all Caffesso pods are supplied in the new plant based capsule.
We have also set up over a hundred partnership deals with businesses, hotels, motels and B and Bs and worked out some sponsorship arrangements with some NZ sporting and TV stars.
Our best moments, however, have been supporting Robbie and Jacqui Ritchie at One Dollar Warriors, Women's Refuge and Variety - The Children's Charity Help us to help them more. Thanks for reading.