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SHARON L. BONDThe coffee mug factory in Midtown imprints 3,000 cups a day, making it one of the bigger winners for the area.
ST. PETERSBURG - When you think of a coffee mug, Lou Moser wants you to think of Cuppa. Just like when you need a tissue but say, please hand me a Kleenex. Or when you want any kind of soda but say, let's go get a Coke.
Cuppa is a coffee mug factory in Midtown in St. Petersburg where 3,000 mugs have some sort of logo or scene imprinted on them daily. The imprints range from "pets to military to Christian inspiration," Moser said.
He and his partner, artist Steve Redden, want Cuppa to become the brand name for the 15-ounce mug his company uses. If they succeed, consumers will ask for Cuppas when they mean coffee mugs.
"A true brand leader in sales controls about 85 percent of the marketplace," Moser said. He puts the annual worth of the coffee mug industry at $4-billion a year. Because of that and the unlimited potential, he and Redden chose mugs. They sell mainly to the gift industry. Moser would not divulge specific information about the company's sales or earnings.
Anybody driving south on the interstate through St. Petersburg probably has seen the Cuppa sign on the factory roof.
Cuppa is one of the larger new businesses in the Midtown area, a part of St. Petersburg where incomes are lower and the city is trying to improve living conditions. An increase in businesses is a way to better economic health for Midtown, city officials believe.
Most of the new businesses locating in Midtown have fewer than 10 workers. Cuppa has 40 workers cranking out the 3,000 mugs per day in its 40,000-square-foot warehouse at 1921 Fifth Ave. S. It has been there about three years. Moser said he and his partners chose the location because they needed a lot of room, and rent was cheaper there.
Moser said most of the workers come from nearby neighborhoods.
Cuppa's mugs are imported from China, and the company has its own process it uses to imprint full color on mugs. The company is licensed to use a number of artists' work, including the Hautman Brothers who are wildlife artists. Cuppa just received a license from the American Kennel club, Moser said.
It also does a lot of fantasy designs. Lord of the Rings fantasies are popular now.
But half of its business comes from military contracts. In fact, Cuppa went from a part-time business to full time when it got its first military contract. It has hundreds of military designs, ranging from something as general as United States Air Force and the accompanying insignia to something as specific as the T-38 Talon for the Air Force training jet.
Cuppa's inventory is more in the stacks of design transfers rather than racks of imprinted mugs. An order comes in, and the mugs are imprinted. When finished, they retail from $9.95 to $11.95.
Although the plain mug is imported, Moser said Cuppa can label the imprinted ones as American-made because of the amount of work the company does to the mug.