Garrett Oden - Owner of Fresh Cup Magazine

In this interview, Garrett Oden, the Owner of Fresh Cup Magazine, shared his experience starting in a café, then moving into copywriting for coffee, food, and food tech, and the journey that led him to take ownership of Fresh Cup.

We shared a similar experience early in our coffee career of wanting to make an impact. However, after seeing under the hood of the businesses we worked at, that the reason we weren’t seeing the impact we were hoping for wasn’t because the businesses didn’t want to make an impact. It was because they weren’t particularly profitable and unable to make the desired impact as a result.

During our interview, innovation came up multiple times and Garrett shared his love for innovation. He believes that there’s a huge opportunity in beverage concentrates across the industry, whether in cold brew, teas, or other formats.

We discussed the Welcome Box and RoasterLink, and how they help support cafés, roasters, and vendors through business challenges. Garrett sees his role—and the role of Fresh Cup—as one of service to the industry. He believes that if someone engages with Fresh Cup for more than a year, they should accomplish something as a result. I appreciate this approach because it’s generative, supportive, and education-focused—everything an industry publication should be.

We concluded our conversation talking about Alimentous, a content and copywriting agency for coffee, food, and food tech that Garrett also owns. We also touched on the emergence of AI and how it has affected marketers, business owners, and who is best positioned to get the most out of these tools.