Contact Us Now      Download the Flyer     Today's Log    Think Flavored    

Click a picture for a larger image.

Wawa is Not Being Honest With You

Think you are drinking Kona, think again.  It may contain some very low percentage of Kona, but it does not taste at all like the real Kona.  WaWa can correct this easily by changing the labels.

Think you are drinking Kenyan?  Think again.  It is a blend, not 100% Kenyan.

Kona Kai Scandal

For some reason Kona is a prime target of these false labelers.  Kona Kai was a brand of Kona coffee that was sold to many of the best coffee tasters in the world.  It included Starbucks and Green Mountain Coffee.  But it was not Kona Coffee.  It was peruvian or something similiar is size and appearance.  It looked good, it tasted good, but it was not what it appeared to be.

The owner of Kona Kai paid like $20 Million in fines and went to jail for a long time.  Will the same be true of Wawa?

For those of you who are laughing at the name, its real, and its a very competitive convenience business that is out to grow at any cost.

Including honesty.

WaWa Coffee is Labeled improperly.  And it may be illegally.  The coffee association of the Kona region of Hawaii, requires that blends have at least 10% Kona, and that they Must Be Labeled Kona Blend.

We have purchased from the store packages that they use to brew.  It is labeled Kona Blend, and in my conversations with the coffee buyer he opening says that the coffee is a blend.  And that they will not change the labeling.  He goes to the Specialty Coffee Association Conventions, and he knows what the conventions and labeling laws are.  Yet WaWa continues to abuse their economic power and mislabel intentionally.

Your Kona at WaWa is not Kona, it is mostly other coffees and most likely 10% Hawaiian coffee.  And the Kenyan is the same.  They use a blend, not a Kenyan.  And neither are labeled within the bounds of honesty.

I wrote to the president, and then spoke directly to their coffee buyer to alert them that labeling a Kona Blend as Kona was not legal.  This too applied to Kenyan coffee.  WaWa labels it Kenyan, not a Kenyan Blend as it should be.

I've written and called and spoke with their chief coffee person, who is a member of the SCAA, or at least goes to the convention.  He is he said familiar with the SCAA and its rules and he refused to change his labeling.

There are a lot of WaWa customers who think they are drinking Kona and Kenyan, and they are not.  This hurts you and it hurts me directly since for the coffee professionals it dilutes our brands.  And WaWa sells millions of cups of coffee.

Why can they get away with this?  I called the states attorney general who said I'd have to take them to court and get a finding that they were breaking the law.  I certainly don't, by myself, have the resources to fight this battle with a Giant.  But if we had allies, we could.

And they have weaknesses.   But in this case money protects them.  And I guess a good helping of corporate arrogance.

Having WaWa at our conventions is like having the fox in the chicken coup.  

Ice Cream Containers

The pint size ice cream containers have no tape around the top to indicate the package is not tampered with.  This is an indication of what WaWa thinks of its customers.  They are willing to risk the lives of their customers to save a few pennies.

Gasoline

If they are mislabeling the coffee, what are they doing to the gasoline.

I know first hand that when the new wawa in our neighborhood opened they were charging 40 cents over regular for the premium.  My car at the time used premium.  The Sunoco station they forced out of business charge 20 over regular and virtually everyone does.  Eventually they came back to 20 cents but for several months the overcharged.  

They will always argue, well don't buy it from us.  But this not reasonable since they force so many independent mom and pop stores out of business, and many gasoline stations.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________