The most unexpected things can sometimes drive changes. In 2014 WOG, whose key business is wholesale and retail trade of oil products, started a real revolution in coffee consumption in the retail market in Ukraine. We were the first to launch a coffee project focused on delivering top quality products and customer experience. We employ professional equipment from Franke, the top coffee equipment manufacturer in the world, we source coffee beans from J.J. Darboven, a long-time German coffee family business, and use quality control systems for our coffee beans and water. .
We offered our customers not just to switch from instant coffee, which dominated the market at the time, but to take a quantum leap, raising the bar for flavor, choice and quality to an unattainable level. This was a global change that impacted WOG’s business processes and the retail market in general. Our company started not only an entirely new coffee culture, but also formulated an entirely new mission for visiting gas stations. Today, consumers consider coffee at WOG not just a beverage, but rather a ritual and a nice habit.
Coffee consumption has transformed into a convenient and quality service that the customers expect “by default”. The culture of consumption transformed as well, pushing other brands to change and follow the trends started by our gas station chain. ‘Live’ coffee appeared at other gas station chains, at food retail chains and even at many supermarkets and grocery stores. Today, a good choice of quality coffee drinks is an absolute must have.
After the introduction of the new coffee consumption standards, our next step was changing the cups. Nobody remembers now whether there were simple paper cups or thin plastic disposable cups before. WOG introduced multi-wall cups for hot drinks that keep your drink warm for a long time without burning your hands.
With time, however, delicious coffee alone was no longer enough. A demand for an entirely different customer experience emerged – the customers wanted to not only experience the product, but also the process of selection and consumption.
Today, coffee at WOG has become a ritual with its own story for the customers. And every story needs a continuation. Consumers see the additional services and meanings that make their daily coffee something more than just a drink.
Therefore, we continue to improve ourselves, provide customers with a different experience of using the service, teach them not to stop, instead always wishing for a better option. Therefore, WOG is filling coffee with different meanings – the Road of Kindness charity initiative targeted at helping with the medical treatment of children. In addition, WOG is promoting responsible consumption within the framework of the Treating Nature with Kindness, a WOG environmental platform. The company’s other activities also involve providing support to the Ukrainian environmental startup companies and so on..
Every year, we produce a limited collection of violet charity cups with a special print of the Road of Kindness promo. Thanks to every customer who chose to drink their beverage from the violet cup, we raised over UAH 23 million over more than 10 years to purchase and repair expensive medical equipment for the medical institutions all across the country.
We filled out coffee with yet another important meaning, and that’s responsible consumption and recycling. After all, taking care of people, we also have to care about nature. It is our personal responsibility to future generations.
Every month, over 2 million coffee drinks are sold at WOG. Therefore, in partnership with Blue Ocean Solution, a Ukrainian environmentally friendly company, we launched a project for recycling used coffee grounds. Used coffee grounds and part of waste paper from the chain’s gas stations and facilities are collected for recycling and then returned to the gas stations in the form of convenient environmentally friendly cup holders. We also offer our customers an alternative to plastic straws – any customer can choose an eco-straw that is absolutely safe for the environment.
Customer feedback and their comments on social media inspire us to move even faster towards promoting responsible consumption. Therefore, in partnership with Paper-Cups, WOG launched production of eco bamboo fiber cups. Bamboo has a high rate of recovery – it grows over 30 cm per day, while a regular tree requires several years. Therefore, by using bamboo as the raw material for disposable cutlery (cups?) we are saving our forests. To make the new cups even more environmentally friendly, we decided not to whiten the materials, since the process involves chlorine and other substances that are dangerous for the atmosphere.
We are especially proud to involve Ukrainian startup companies, domestic small and medium enterprises in the implementation of our environmental initiatives.
These, of course, are only the first environmental pilot projects of the company. Modern business thrives in an extremely competitive environment. This applies also to innovation, including in the field of environment protection. Therefore, when we implement a pilot and get positive feedback, we expand the project across our chain nationwide in a matter of months.
The truest WOG coffee is not just a message. It is a step up – towards higher requirements for convenience and taste, more meanings and added value.
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