US college students show crowds how to eat their coffee

Two American college students have closed an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign and created a way to ‘Eat your coffee’. The Northeastern University students, Johnny Fayad and Ali Kothari, raised $44,109 on the crowd-sourcing site to fund their CoffeeBar project. “This all started during our freshman year, we were constantly running late to our 8am financial class and never had time to eat breakfast, or more importantly drink our coffee,” said Kothari, on Kickstarter. “So with that we thought, why can’t we just eat our coffee?” Fayad and Kothari trialled the CoffeeBar at their University Demo Day, they were then accepted into IDEA: Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator, where they gained access to a business coach, mentors, legal advice from 3rd year law students, a qualified lawyer and a $10,000 grant. The duo launched their Kickstarter campaign and succeeded their goal of $10,000 in the first day it went live. Raising the bar, they then set the task of raising $25,000, which has enabled them to source their coffee fair trade. Following the successful funding of the project, the young CEOs have launched New Grounds Food, selling their flagship CoffeeBar and a Mocha Latte flavour. The CoffeeBar contains a whole shot of coffee, or 102 milligrams of caffeine, and all natural ingredients such as cashews, chia seeds and gluten-free oats. Fayad and Kothari are now rolling out an e-commerce site, with CoffeeBars available on a subscription basis, and sell their bars to cafés and specialty stores. Visit the New Grounds Food website: www.newgroundsfood.com