Furthers & Betters Goes Beyond the Cup for Specialty Coffee Consumer Intelligence

A new specialty coffee research and consulting firm called Furthers & Betters is launching with a focus on the people actually buying and drinking the coffee.

Co-founded by longtime consumer researcher Cheryl Hung and coffee industry consultant and strategist Brian Gaffney, Furthers & Betters is offering syndicated and custom consumer research alongside consulting services designed to turn research findings into business strategies.

“The industry has developed extraordinary product expertise because it’s full of people who are deeply passionate about coffee itself — and we need those people,” Hung and Gaffney jointly told DCN via email. “But when so much attention is concentrated on the product, there’s a risk that understanding the consumer receives less attention.”

The founders noted that larger coffee companies and businesses across other retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories often have teams studying consumers and their purchasing behaviors, yet much of the resulting intelligence tends to be proprietary.

“Without access to that kind of consumer understanding, many businesses are left to make decisions based on intuition, experience or educated guesses,” Hung and Gaffney said. “Furthers & Betters exists to help close that gap by making relevant consumer intelligence more accessible, affordable and actionable across the specialty coffee industry.”

Hung and Gaffney are both familiar names in the coffee industry. Hung has more than two decades of experience in market research, including leading consumer reports on behalf of the National Coffee Association (NCA) and the Coffee Association of Canada (CAC). Gaffney, who spent more than a decade guiding corporate clients at PwC, was the inaugural chief experience officer for green coffee company Caravela Coffee and is the U.S. coordinator for the Slow Food Coffee Coalition. 

(Disclosure: Brian Gaffney has written freelance stories for Daily Coffee News and other coffee industry publications.)

“Our backgrounds are highly complementary,” the duo said. “Cheryl specializes in uncovering what consumers think, feel and do; Brian specializes in turning that understanding into options and actions.”

The first major product rollout for Furthers & Betters will be a quarterly syndicated research program. Furthers & Betters plans to preview its inaugural consumer segmentation study during a virtual launch event in October, with the full study scheduled for release in January 2027.

Furthers & Betters said potential clients include specialty coffee roasters and brands, cafes and retailers, equipment manufacturers, importers, exporters, industry organizations and investors. The consumer research will initially focus on the U.S. and Canada.

During the October event, the company also plans to open enrollment for a 50-seat “Founding Research Partner” program. The $2,500 founding annual rate will include early access to four quarterly reports, resources and support for interpreting findings and preferred rates for custom work. The standard annual subscription rate will rise to $3,300 beginning Jan. 1, 2027. Individual reports will also be available for $600 during the 2026 launch period, increasing to $800 in 2027, the company told DCN. 

“While our clients may sit in different parts of specialty coffee, the common question is the same: how can better consumer understanding help them make smarter decisions?” they said.

That concept is reflected in the Furthers & Betters name. It borrows a line from the British television detective series Endeavour in which a detective character uses the expression “furthers and betters” to describe additional information needed to arrive at greater accuracy. 

“That idea immediately resonated with us,” the founders said. “In many ways, that’s exactly what we believe specialty coffee needs: additional information that helps us see the consumer more clearly and make smarter, data-driven decisions about how to create and capture value.”

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