Another Cup | Covoya's Marketing Manager, Sam Supsky Ep. 18
Episode Summary
In this episode of Another Cup, Liesa Collins interviews Sam Supsky, the marketing manager at Covoya. They discuss Sam's journey into the coffee industry, the importance of community and relationships in coffee, the challenges faced in marketing during dynamic market changes, and the future aspirations for Covoya. Sam also shares insights into her personal life, including her love for cooking and her three cats, highlighting the balance between work and personal interests.
Episode Notes
- Sam's background in coffee started with Dunkin' Donuts and coffee milk.
- Her first job in coffee was with coffee extracts.
- Marketing in coffee involves a variety of tasks and events.
- The coffee industry is heavily influenced by the people involved.
- Navigating market changes can be challenging for marketing efforts.
- Sam values the willingness of others to share knowledge in the coffee community.
- Covoya aims to be more present in the market and at events.
- The importance of storytelling in marketing coffee products.
- Sam enjoys a simple life filled with family and cooking.
- Having pets adds joy and comfort to her home life.
MIKE FERGUSON: Welcome to Another Cup, Part of The Exchange Coffee Podcasting Network presented by Covoya Specialty Coffee, where coffee is always a collaborative voyage. Another Cup is devoted to conversations with suppliers, customers, all the relationships in between. Covoya's Trade Analyst, Liesa Collins, chats with Covoya's Marketing Manager, Sam Supsky. They talk about Sam's background, job at Covoya, and cats.
LIESA COLLINS: All right. Hi, everybody. We are here with Sam Supsky, the marketing manager here at Covoya and I am Liesa Collins. I'll be asking the questions. I'm the Trade Analyst here, part-time podcaster.
SAM SUPSKY: I was going to say unofficial stand-in podcast host. Yes.
LIESA: I'm so excited. Okay. Do I just jump into it?
SAM: Let’s dive in, yes.
LIESA: Tell us about yourself and how you got into coffee.
SAM: Sure. That's, yeah. So growing up in New England, I'm from Rhode Island where we're recording from now. Dunkin' Donuts, I fear, is very much a part of coffee culture out here, at least in the early 2000s when I was growing up here. So a lot of going to Dunkin' Donuts on the weekends, lots of culture around that. We also have coffee milk here, is a big thing. I don't know if anybody else has talked about this on the podcast but coffee milk is a, is a rite of passage for all Rhode Island children. So it's a lot of being fed that immediately. And that's kind of the gateway to the rest of coffee.
LIESA: Does it have coffee in it?
SAM: It does.
LIESA: It’s a small enough amount?
SAM: Yeah. It's an extract. There probably is caffeine in it. I should know the answer to that, but I do not. but yeah, yeah. I mean, we're giving it to kids all the time. So that's why the in bottles.
LIESA: Caffeinated from age six.
SAM: Exactly. So yeah, so coffee's always kind of been around. And then I worked at Dunkin’ Donuts in high school, like all, again, Rhode Island children do. And then I moved, went to school. I was barista. And then my first job out of college was with coffee extracts. So working with similar to Autocrat and sometimes Autocrat, which is the coffee milk. Doing marketing for those guys, which was really cool and interesting, because obviously you've heard about coffee milk your whole life. And now I can get to work with coffee milk. Um, so that's how I got into like food and beverage stuff. And then when this opportunity came up, it was coffee in a cool environment. And so I was like, sign me up and here we are. So I like to say that my official coffee experience hasn't started until working here, but was always adjacent. I was around coffee a lot.
LIESA: And how long have you been with us at Covoya?
SAM: December 2023, I believe, so, yeah.
LIESA: All right. Tell us about what you do here, what your day to day is, what you're involved with.
SAM: Yeah, so I mean the reason I got into marketing is because every day is going to be a little different. I like that variety, so that was always really important to me in my work. So here, lots of stuff. Like right now we're very much in SCA planning mode. A lot of parties to plan, booths to coordinate, people to coordinate, and making sure everybody knows what we're doing. So a lot of working on that stuff. We also have GROW Guatemala coming up and so coordinating marketing around that, getting people signed up. So we're really excited. It's all, it's all cool stuff, but it's all very event based right now. And I mean, other than that, social media, you know, all the, all the classic things, website stuff as is applicable. But yeah, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, that's always a marketing role, kind of. You get to be a jack of all trades and a master of all of them. So that's just a little bit about what I do when I'm not being silly and a menace. Exactly. I came in with easy, the foundation was laid. So it was easy to pick up and keep making us look good.
LIESA: Making us look good. Because you're our brand is tight.
SAM: Exactly. I came in with easy, the foundation was laid. So it was easy to pick up and keep making us look good. And the team looks good on their own too so that's easy to highlight as well.
LIESA: Yeah, there's something about, well, you guys make a leaky, like, you know, like you do enough marketing just by who we have on the team.
SAM: Yeah, I mean and that's who we are right? So it's like it's cool when your brand is the people who are working ultimately and it's like and those people are also lovely so it's kind of it just it makes my job really, really easy which I also like.
LIESA: You put that sparkle on it though, it's so nice.
SAM: Thank you. No it's cool. It's cool to be a part of I love obviously everybody here is so wonderful and so it's nice to highlight them.
LIESA: It is a great team. Okay, let's see. What is your favorite part of the coffee industry?
SAM: Um, I think, and this is such a, the answer that everybody gives, but I am going to give it as well, is very much the people so far. Um, from, you know, traders in the office to the customers that I've gotten to meet and hang out with, interface with. It's just, everyone is so lovely. Um, our origin teams in particular, like I, every day I'm like, why are these people being so nice to me? Um, I haven't done anything.
But they're just, just, everybody is so warm and accommodating and yeah, I don't know. It's just the people make it easy for me to like everything and the willingness to share information. So like I obviously coffee drinker, I'm interested in coffee, I'm interested in trying coffees. And so I appreciate that there's no gatekeeping from me any of that information. So it's like the people are just ready and willing to share their expertise. And so you can find new and exciting things to love about coffee throughout the course of our journey.
LIESA: That is so true. What would you say are unexpected challenges about working here or our industry or large to small?
SAM: I think right now the frequent market dynamic changes make it a little bit tough. It's hard to talk about certain things, I think, in marketing while there's this kind of heaviness in other areas of our business. So navigating some of that has been difficult. But trying to, again, just utilize the expertise of the team and make sure that they're showing up really nicely online and in those kind of public spaces and showcasing their expertise and that they can be a good partner really for people who are trying to also navigate these times. So it's difficult, but again, made easy by the team we have.
LIESA: Yeah, the things that affect like everybody's job like that are difficult also because you have to represent us. Absolutely manifests and when you're marketing it and when you're discussing how to. Hey, look over here while we're having a crazy---
SAM: Very serious conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a lot of herding cats a little bit, but I mean, as a cat mom, cat lady, that's par for the course. So I don't mind it. yeah, no, it's a difficult time. And so just kind of navigating that. I'm learning a lot. I guess that's what you can take from tough times and just the expertise around me is it's nice to learn. And I have a lot of trust that things will be navigated well.
LIESA: Yeah, I you have to have a conversation about it because if we might not necessarily know it because we're not from this world originally, it's like, okay, well now I'm learning the most about it so that we can go off and tell a customer or go and, you know, spin a marketing...
SAM: Yeah, because in marketing, right, you have to be prepared to make that message accessible in what is inherently a very complicated message about outlooks. And obviously, it's all ,none of us have a crystal ball. I wish we did.
LIESA: If we did we’d be on a beach.
SAM: If we did we’d be on a beach. Jetskis and gold chains. No, it just, makes it, it's an interesting translation exercise almost and like making sure I understand a thing. And then as you know, we're putting out content, emails, blogs, podcasts, that kind of thing, just making sure that it's all like super well aligned and easy to understand and digest. But again, Mark and Todd make that very easy with the podcast and Mike with his blogs. So learning a lot, trying to distill it for everybody else to understand.
LIESA: I know, I feel like people sometimes don't realize how many strays you have to catch of like, we think this would be really cool or this would sound good or we need this specific coffee to get, you know, high views on this social media thing. You really have to do take everybody's like, I need this, this, this, and then make it under the umbrella of the brand. And also like get out there and advertise something that like a trader might want to be highlighted.
SAM: Yeah, and I think, I mean, again, the coffees that we bring in, like, in terms of advertising and things like that, like, it's easy to talk about, like, the producer and stuff like that. Like, there's a seriousness to that as well, of wanting to do right by the person who's preparing the coffee. So there's a lot of listening, a lot of respect that has to be paid. But that's all, it's, you know, that's easy for me to do.
LIESA: Yeah, those stories are just like, so yummy and amazing.
SAM: Yeah. Even as we're ramping up our Cafe Dela's program, all about women producers in South and Central America, having the opportunity to meet those producers and learn more about them. It's just true passion projects for these people. And obviously their livelihood and just the craft that exists is fascinating to me and how much they care and how to say makes my job easy and markets itself.
LIESA: It markets itself.
SAM: It does.
LIESA: One might say. Um, okay. What are you most excited about in the future when it comes to Covoya?
SAM: Hmm. That's a good question. I'm excited for more for just more of everything, kind of being out in the market more. I think 2025 has been really good for us to get like just in front of people as much as possible. We're doing Northeast Coffee Fest, SCA, of course, and just like kind of showing up. And I have this saying of like, you can't ignore me if I'm like around all the time. And so some of that is what I'm trying to do with Covoya. Just put us in those cool places, be adjacent and be just like ready when someone wants to talk to us or showcasing our stability in these kind of trying times and things like that. So I'm excited to see more of that happening, more events, more people.
LIESA: Becoming a household name.
SAM: Becoming a household name. Being a part of in some way the future of what the industry can look like and things like that, like being a part of that collaborative journey, speaks to me and that that's really exciting to me. It's just the, like, that the sky is kind of the limit. So it is more of everything. It's a cool place to be. Makes it easy. It is.
LIESA: There it is. Okay, what else are you into besides coffee? Who Sam? What does Sam do outside of work?
SAM: She does a lot of, ultimately I'm a homebody, so a lot of home stuff. I'm big on cultivating a space that feels super comfy, cozy. I live with my husband, we have three cats- save the gasps. And so just kind of chilling with those guys, which always sounds so silly, but it is just like my favorite thing to do is like come home and like watch Top Chef with my husband and you know have a drink, have dinner, cooking we do a lot of cooking very into food really across the board. Trying new things so yeah it's a lot of that kind of stuff I'm trying to think of anything more interesting.
LIESA: You spend a lot of time with family.
SAM: I do spend a lot of time with family. They're all very close here. Um, having grown up in Rhode Island and nobody leaves. So, um, a lot of that, my sister lives in Bristol and she is the coolest as all little sisters are known to be.
LIESA: I’m the little sister.
SAM: I know!
LIESA: Could not agree more.
SAM: Exactly, exactly. Making it again, big sister down. Um, but, uh, yeah, so really it's a very, uh, simple kind of life, but it's so, again, curated, I think, to exactly what I do, pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want. And that kind of freedom is just the best part about being adult. I've been saying lately that I finally feel my age is one of the big things. My whole life, I get the old soul thing a lot. I was born 25. I've wanted to be a grownup for so long. And now I feel in that perfect zone of like, you know, I'm going to be 30 this year and like, just feel good and comfortable and like, like I have successfully curated this life and this space for myself to kind of just be, doing what I want to do. It’s cool.
LIESA: It is. Yeah, sometimes I get zapped and I'm like, oh wait, I do have free will.
SAM: Totally.
LIESA: I don’t have to do any of this stuff I can get up and go for a walk.
SAM: Exactly. it's a lot of just like, recognizing that I think is so huge. And so it's like, you know, yeah, it sounds like I'm not doing a ton and the reality is I'm not, I guess. But I like it that way.
LIESA: It’s a nice life.
SAM: It is, yeah. And now it's getting nicer and things like that. So spending time like, side, take the cat stroller out, things like that.
LIESA: This is insane. I didn't know you had a cat stroller.
SAM: Oh yeah.
LIESA: Oh my god. I need videos.
SAM: There are definitely pictures. But yeah, no, we look insane. Like if you're walking down the road and you see a man and woman and their cat in a stroller, it is a cat.
LIESA: You put all three of them in there?
SAM: No, unfortunately they won't all fit. We've tried to do two, but they don't vibe. Like they get along, but they're not in close quarters like that. So we take our oldest, Ralph, is the golden child. He comes out. We have a cute little, we live across the street from a school and down the road is this basketball, not basketball court, football field with a track and things like that. And our nieces have like, whether they're going to learn to play bike, ride bikes, they're like playing a sport. Like we'll take him and we'll walk down and he'll just hang out. So yeah.
LIESA: Shout out to Ralph.
SAM: Shout out to Ralph. We're those people.
LIESA: What are the other cat’s names?
SAM: Ralph is the oldest, then there's Zipper, she's all black, and Bug the wedding cat who's orange and white.
LIESA: Perfect. Perfect family.
SAM: A little weirdos, but yeah. It's a good time at our house.
LIESA: I love it. Thanks for talking.
SAM: Of I hope I was even a little bit interesting.
LIESA: I think we've hit a good time for it. I think that was great.
MIKE: You've been listening to Another Cup, part of the Exchange Coffee Podcasting Network presented by Covoya Specialty Coffee and produced by me, Mike Ferguson. Our music for this episode is “Dreamy Cats” by Magic Solo. You can email me with questions, thoughts or ideas at mike.ferguson@covoya.com.
SAM: I did like burp a little bit and then I was like, oh no.
MIKE: I can make it louder.
