The news of
Dart Container’s acquisition Solo Cup earlier this year for $1 billion was clearly exciting, but what does it mean for the Lansing area? One of the region’s other favorite businesses is helping to put the transaction in perspective.
Biggby Coffee has historically purchased their cups from Solo. Now, they’ll continue to order the same product, but their business will go to their cross-town colleagues at Dart.
And that’s no small change. Last year, Biggby purchased 15 million cups from Solo.
“Being an East Lansing-based business ourselves, it means a lot,” says Biggby Public Relationship Assistant Katie Koerner. “We get our coffee right from Paramount in Lansing. It’s always nice when we can work with another Michigan business.
Dart’s new relationship with Biggby is sure to be a growing one. The coffee shop company celebrated its seventeenth birthday in March and marked the occasion by selling double the number of cups on the big day than it did on its birthday in 2011.
“In some markets it was even higher than that with 70 to 90 percent more cups sold compared to the 2011 birthday celebration,” says Koerner.
Part of that growth is surely due to all of the additional stores opened and jobs added over the past year. In 2012 alone, six new Biggby locations have launched, bringing the franchise-wide total to 132 stores in eight states. Another 15 are under contract to open soon. Each of those businesses employ 12 to 15 workers for a total of approximately 1,800 jobs including those at Bigbby headquarters.
“When you can keep things local, it not only benefits you as a company, but your customers as well,” says Koerner.
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