When exploring East Broad Street, one unique building that attracted our attention was the production company of the local coffee roasters, PERC. As locals of Savannah, we have seen their stickers in coffee shops throughout the city. Rylie’s former workplace in Bluffton, SC also sells PERC coffee. We had the pleasure to interview the backbone of the company and get the full inside scoop of how PERC coffee roasters commenced.
We interviewed one employee named Taylor Kimball; he originally was born in Savannah, Georgia. He attended Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina and majored in music industry studies (otherwise known as sound design). He returned to Savannah where his friend Spencer said he needed assistance with his new company, PERC. Taylor started out packaging then progressed his position to warehouse manager. His job description entails handling all incoming and out coming orders, makes sure all orders process correctly and ship out on time. He replies to feedback about the product and makes sure every customer or account they have are sufficiently satisfied with the product. Taylor believes that his future will revolve around PERC because he loves what he does and the company is starting to expand.
PERC’s building is located on 1802 East Broad Street and is an old restored warehouse. The interior wood-work such as beams, doors, and table tops are made from recycled wood which convey a rich and warm home like feel to the location. Perc’s choice for their business location correlates directly to this tight knit family.
PERC sells its products to sixty- seventy vendors all over the city of Savannah. A few prominent locals that they do business with are Foxy Loxy, The Coffee Fox, Brighter Day, andFive Spot. They recently began distributing their product to Whole Foods in Savannah GA, Charleston SC, Columbia SC, Hilton Head SC, and three different locations in Atlanta.
The PERC name was created by Philip Brown, who is the owner of the company. The name was originally going to be called “Panthers Eye Roasting Company” then turned into the anagram PERC. PERC did run a shop on Saturdays but stopped because production took up most of the time and needed the most focus.
Currently, employees are brain-storming about possibly opening a separate location called “The Shop.” The concept in the works is to provide coffee, tee shirts, and accessories along with a sitting area to drink the freshly brewed coffee.
Monday through Wednesday roasting and production work begins. How the process works was explained by Taylor; they get the shipments of coffee usually about ten bags at a time. Then, they batch the beans out into bins that weigh from thirty to fifty pounds per batch. Roasting takes about ten to fifteen minutes per batch, cools off, then packaging, shipping, and finally delivered to a particular client. They try to get orders out same day or next day, but also depends on the size of the order as well. The coffee does not sit in a warehouse for more than a couple of days, so the product is guaranteed fresh.
After visiting PERC on a separate occasion, my partner and I came across a young, passionate, and over-caffeinated man named Spencer Perez. He is the director of quality assessment and educator of the coffee the company works with. He focuses on tasting the coffee, figuring out why it tastes the way it does, scoring in data, buying the green beans, and meeting with the owner daily about recommending what he fixes in the roast to bring out or reduce better tasting characteristics in coffee. He has worked with PERC for about three years now and was the first person to hop on the PERC train with owner Philip Brown.
Spencer’s lived in Savannah, GA since he was six years old. He attended college in Tennessee studying performing arts because he enjoyed singing. Then returned to Savannah to enroll into SCAD as a performing arts major but soon realized he was not passionate about the job he was about to embark on. He dropped out and started getting into a career he had developed a deep interest in, the coffee industry. Spencer adequately stated, if you make something you love into a job then it is no longer something you purely enjoy doing.
Spencer has been in the coffee business for about four years now. He has worked multiple jobs with different local coffee shops around the city such as Gallery Espresso, Foxy Loxy, The Coffee Fox. Upon first working within the industry, his passion for the coffee business flourished and he began to bring up ideas businesses to enhance the quality of the coffee. But, this was something they were not interested in developing this idea further. He then came to Philip, who related to Spencer’s intensity toward the growing coffee industry and got his dream job at PERC.
Spencer stated there are a lot of upsides to having their business located in Savannah. He said, “Everyone who works here really wants to be here… It’s cool to work with a team who are dedicated to excellence.” Having this type of business here would not be able to thrive in a bigger city; Savannah is an ideal place because the non-stop working art students need their coffee. Savannah is a hip young town, and Spencer feels everyone living here has ingenuity within their blood. Some downsides occur on a regular basis. All of the staff in the warehouse having free coffee supply to drink can have its perks until the caffeine hits a certain point in the co-workers making the tensions run a little high. Another downside is being a small, local growing coffee business, and they are susceptible to make changes in the global coffee market. Coffee prices change daily just like gas and oil so having to keep up with the larger competitors can be difficult. PERC focuses on the coffee market in Brazil. They stay aware of economic and political aspects in Brazil ensure everything runs accordingly which in return means production will run efficiently on PERC’s end as well. Spencer informed us the weather prediction next year is calling for a huge frost in Brazil, implying that they are already in preparation for next summer on coffee sales because of the anticipated inclement weather. Just as any other thriving business they need their accounts to maintain loyalty to PERC in order to keep running a small business in Savannah. PERC does not know if they can make big changes anytime soon to the company for the risk of losing their accounts.
When asking Spencer if the opportunity arose to have PERC relocated anywhere else or if he foresaw a location that was superior over Savannah, he replied, “No, I think Savannah is perfect for us, there wasn’t anything like this before we came along, or Phillip came along because I worked in Savannah pre PERC and it was very frustrating. Granted places like Gallery and Sentient Bean serve great purposes for the community, but we wanted to help something different, or that’s what I wanted… I think this boom in specialty coffee is evidence of our impact on the community.”
Spencer Perez is incredibly dedicated and driven to the coffee industry and has the biggest passion for being a part of the industry. He gets up every day excited and wanting to come to work. He states, “We’re growing a culture here, and we couldn’t do that in a big city… to be able to come in a change a community inside and out in terms of their choice of coffee is pretty cool.”
Having the opportunity to interview the people behind the production PERC was an eye opening experience. It allowed us to see the dedication, time, and hard work that go into owning a successful, growing business in Savannah. It was fascinating to get to know both Spencer and Taylor as individuals and what they contribute to the company with their knowledge about the coffee industry. Getting to see the production space of where all the coffee brews was visually compelling in itself. We immensely enjoyed the project and found it inspiring to converse and get to know these incredible people. All of PERC’s Staff are driven on a daily basis by their passions for this prosperous business, translating into what we strive for in our majors at SCAD.
Aside from the interviews that were based on PERC Coffee Roasters as a business, we found that in observation of the people that work here are truly dedicated and invested within this company. This staff works in a collaborative effort that makes this business stand out from any other coffee shop in downtown Savannah.
