NEW YORK -- Bolla Market, the New York area’s chain of high-end convenience stores, officially switched to only organic, fair-trade and bird-friendly specialty coffee for all its coffee offerings this past week. “Bolla Gourmet Organic Coffee” will be sold at the company’s 21 locations recently reopened post-Hurricane Sandy and located from Brooklyn to Riverhead on Long Island, as well as on Staten Island.
In making the switch, the company becomes one of the largest convenience store chains to provide only organic, fair-trade and bird-friendly shade grown coffee as its coffee offerings in the U.S.
“We are very proud to now offer delicious specialty coffee certified to strict organic, Fair Trade and Bird Friendly shade-grown standards and demonstrate that quality and convenience can go hand in hand at affordable prices at convenience stores,” said Harry Singh, president and CEO of Bolla Market. “In our quest for ever improving the quality of the products we sell, it only made sense to provide such a coffee offering in the hot beverages sector, which is one of our fastest-moving product sectors.”
Along with daily choices of light and dark roasts, Bolla Market coffees will include quarterly limited-time offerings starting with a pumpkin-spice holiday flavor to be followed by single-origin coffees such as Guatemala Huehuetenango and Ethiopia Natural Sidamo.
Two 12-ounce varieties of Bolla Gourmet Organic Coffee--Bolla Organic Dark and Classic NY Light Roast--are also available to take home or to the office.
While all the coffee is certified to organic and fair-trade standards, currently approximately 50% is also certified to the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center’s Bird Friendly standard, considered by many to be the gold standard for shade-grown coffee. This figure will increase as more coffee certified to all three standards and meeting the specialty grade of coffee becomes available.
“This major conversion to fair trade-certified coffee represents the industry’s increasing desire to consider both people and planet when it comes to supply-chain sustainability,” said Jennifer Gallegos, director of coffee at Fair Trade USA. “We applaud Bolla Market’s commitment to improving the lives of farming families around the world and providing North American consumers with coffee they can feel good about supporting.”
Founded in 1989, Bolla Market owns and operates a chain of 21 convenience stores in the New York metropolitan area.
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