said Corriher, who is now studying special education. It's a good product and they do it right.
OU began selling the Massachusetts-based company's coffee Jan. 7 at West 82 food court in Baker University Center, adding to a lengthy list of coffee providers on campus.
Working as a sports reporter in New York City, Ohio University graduate student Kim Corriher solicited another source to keep her energy high - a Dunkin' Donuts store below her Rockefeller Center offices.
I'm a big fan of their coffee said Corriher, who is now studying special education. It's a good product and they do it right.
OU began selling the Massachusetts-based company's coffee Jan. 7 at West 82 food court in Baker University Center, adding to a lengthy list of coffee providers on campus.
Mary Jones, associate director of Catering and Retail Operations, suggested bringing Dunkin' Donuts to OU about a year ago. The company is the largest coffee and baked goods chain in the world, selling more than 1 billion cups of coffee every year, according to its website.
It is popular and it's a brand name that people know said Jones, a longtime fan of Dunkin' Donuts. We wanted a brand that wasn't local and that people like.
West 82 customers are already responding well to the transition. The food court sold 126 cups of Dunkin' Donuts coffee Monday, Jan. 10, compared to 96 cups of Cincinnati-based Seven Hills Coffee sold Jan. 3, said Kent Scott, senior general manager of Baker Center.
Working with a larger company meant a longer wait to actually bring the brand to campus, said Mohamed Ali, director of retail operations. After a yearlong effort, Ali negotiated a license agreement with Dunkin' Donuts stating that West 82 would train its employees to brew the brand-name coffee using the company's own specialized equipment.
The company provided its own digital brewing system and large coffee pots free of charge, a welcome upgrade from the equipment West 82 was previously using, Scott said.
Bigger companies offer those equipments
and they take it back when they decide not to sell their coffee there anymore
Ali said.
This Fall Quarter, OU also signed three-year contracts with Starbucks Coffee and subsidiary Seattle's Best Coffee, which are sold in The Front Room Coffeehouse in Baker and Café Bibliotech in
Alden Library, respectively, Ali said.
Representatives from Seattle's Best will be at Alden next Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. offering coffee taste tests, but Café Bibliotech manager Stacy Haney said the coffee is already selling well since switching from Seven Hills last quarter.
Our business went up quite a bit after the transition
said Haney, who also manages The Front Room and the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine and Society of Alumni and Friends Café in the Academic and Research Center.
People seemed to like the familiar brand name.
OU still uses Seven Hills in all four on-campus dining halls, while Gallipolis-based Silver Bridge can be purchased at the café in ARC. OU Catering uses Netherlands brand Douwe Egberts, which comes as a frozen liquid and brews faster to serve large groups of people, Jones said.
Despite phasing out local coffee brands at on-campus locations, Uptown coffeehouses such as Court Street Coffee, 67 S. Court St., don't feel threatened by name brands.
It could hurt us
but I feel like a lot of people in town want to support local companies
said Katrina Barnhart, a manager at Court Street Coffee, which gets its supplies from Columbus-based Crimson Cup. We have a lot of regulars that come to support us.
While coffee preferences vary for each person, the Dunkin' Donuts brand still resonates with fans such as Corriher.
(Dunkin' Donuts) was right up there with McDonald's and Burger King and Exxon in terms of branding when I was growing up
she said. It's this ubiquitous symbol of American consumership.
Dunkin' Donuts' notoriety - and ability to draw in customers and profit - makes the brand a good fit for OU, Ali said.
We're offering students something they're familiar with
he said. And that
I think
