Shopping at the Fullerton Farmers Market on Wednesday morning, I stopped for coffee at the KapiK1 booth and heard an amazing tale.
Fifteen years ago, Bob Cox and his business partner, Ray Zahab, started the nonprofit Impossible2Possible.
“We take youth on expeditions to some remote part of the planet – the Amazon jungle, the Sahara Desert,” explained Cox, “where they attempt to do something impossible, like run a marathon a day for six consecutive days in this inhospitable place. It’s all free, paid for by corporate donations and sponsorships.
“They’re also immersed in an educational program, so if we’re in the Amazon jungle, it might be biodiversity or ecosystems,” he added. “Everything is videoed, and simultaneously we share it with schools throughout the world. We get between 10,000 and 20,000 students in classrooms following the program. We’ve done approximately 16 of them since 2008, and our program has reached over 200,000 kids in classrooms – all of it for free.”
Over time, adults approached the nonprofit wanting to pay to go on these adventures, so they formed KapiK1 Expeditions.
“It’s an Inuit word, loosely translated meaning coffee, so far back we had our sights on coffee,” Cox said. “On all our expeditions, coffee is very important to us. I have a little hashtag, ‘No coffee no expedition.’ Even before we had our own brand, coffee was important to us.”
A coffee shop in Chelsea, Quebec, created an expedition roast for them, which they brought on every expedition.
“Fast forward to the pandemic,” he said. “We’re thinking about that expedition roast. He and I, but mainly he, developed our dark roast blend, which took six months. We started selling in Canada. It was going so well we thought we have to take this down to the states.
“Our model is farmers markets,” Cox said. “That’s how we’re trying to grow our brand.”
Kapik1 is available at farmers markets in Norwalk, Whittier, Fullerton, La…
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