Torch Talk
Torch Talk is the podcast for bold local leaders.
Each week, we sit down with entrepreneurs, experts, and change makers to talk strategy, leadership, marketing, and what it really takes to grow a business today. Honest insights. No fluff. Real stories.
Torch Talk
Coffee That Connects
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In this episode of Torch Talk, Lindsey Chupp sits down with Dwayne Detweiler, owner of Salt Creek Coffee Roasting Company, to discuss building a business rooted in quality, consistency, and community.
After spending decades in ministry, Dwayne shares how he transitioned into entrepreneurship and what it looked like to grow a coffee roasting business from a small garage setup into a full-time operation.
The conversation highlights a steady, intentional approach to growth focused less on rapid expansion and more on doing the work well, serving people consistently, and letting results follow.In this episode, you’ll hear about:
• How Dwayne transitioned from ministry into business ownership
• What it looks like to grow a product-based business step by step
• How Salt Creek built its business through wholesale and local relationships
• Why “under promise and over deliver” still works as a business strategy
• How strong values and people-first leadership carry over into business
This episode offers a practical, grounded look at entrepreneurship, especially for those building something from the ground up and trying to grow it the right way.
People like flavored comfy. You just personally don't like it. Take the coffee roaster who makes flavor comfy doesn't like it. Welcome back to Torch Talk, the show where we spotlight bold leaders growing businesses and communities with grit and purpose. Today's guest is Dwayne Detweiler, entrepreneur and owner of Salt Creek Coffee Roasting Company. In this Torch Talk episode, we'll explore the story behind building a specialty coffee brand and taking a deeper dive into what it takes to grow a business rooted in quality, community, and craftsmanship. Thank you, Dwayne. Welcome to the show. Aren't you so excited?
SPEAKER_01I think so. I am. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so tell us about all of the things Salt Creek Coffee. How long have it has it been since you uh you bought the business, correct?
SPEAKER_01So we bought it in May of 2022 from Shane and Jennifer Weaver.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And so tell us about the business journey. So you kind of transitioned from a life of ministry to a life of business. So what has that transition been like for you?
SPEAKER_01Um I mean it's been great for us. So we um so I passed it for 27 years and uh transitioned out in September of 21, and in March of 22, we had the opportunity to buy the the roasting company from Shane and Jennifer. Um Verda and I talked about it, we prayed about it, we thought it'd be a good little side gig. Um I would keep working at the church and do mediation and some stuff like that, and she would run the roasting business, and so we bought it and we began roasting in our garage in May of 22.
SPEAKER_00And how has it evolved since then? So is it still just a side gig? Has it taken over your life?
SPEAKER_01It has taken over our lives. So um we um when we when we bought it, we were roasting about 350 pounds a week. Um and slowly uh it grew. And so I was I was doing full time at the church and just roasting in the evening, roasting every everything else. And in about a year, I went part-time at the church and part-time in the roasting, and then in January of 2024, I went full-time at the roasting uh at the business. And we in 25 we built a building, so we now have a separate building where we do our roasting and um bagging and everything.
SPEAKER_00So, what does the team look like now? So it started with you and Verda together.
SPEAKER_01Um we're not a very big team, so it's Verda, myself, um, her sister Ruby, Hosteller, Tanya Mullett, um, and our daughter-in-law Lynette um helps us. She does about half the roasting.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So how has Salt Creek grown? Like, what do you guys what's your business model look like?
SPEAKER_01What does her model look like?
SPEAKER_00Like you mostly you supply a lot of local coffee shops with the country. So you're wholesale selling coffee.
SPEAKER_01So wholesale is our our biggest area of um where we sell the most coffee. So we sub we supply five coffee shops um in for them in the area. So it's obviously Salt Creek Cafe. We supply them. We are not them. Um we are separate. Uh once in a while we get a call from somebody wanting to uh order some food. Order a latte. Um with them, um honey and fig down in Charm, Cafe Crystal's in Walt Creek, and uh Blue Moon in uh Holmesville, and then we have one in Marion, one in um Angola, Indiana, and then one in East Palestine, Ohio.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And then a lot of the bulk food stores in Holmes County, and a few in Wayne.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And you're direct supplying them? You're not selling it through distributor? Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We don't we're we don't have any distributorships.
SPEAKER_00Um are you considered like a small batch roaster? I don't really know. Tell us tell us what we need to know about coffee roasting because I don't know anything.
SPEAKER_01Well, so so we start with um sometime you need to come and give you the tour. I know. So we start with green beans, so we try to source our green beans as much as we can, farm direct. So we've got uh about half of our coffee from um our Nicaragua comes from the Diego farm in um Nicaragua. We have um a Brazil coffee from the Gaucha farm, and then we have an Ethiopian coffee that is the those are all farm direct, which when we buy farm direct, then the farmer gets gets more of the benefit of the sale than all the brokers. We do have some broker, uh we have a broker that we work with, and so we purchase the beans, um, they come in, and then we can roast about 20 pounds at a time. A roast takes about 10 to 12 minutes, and so Monday, Tuesday we do all of our roasting, and then um Tuesdays we do all the labeling, and Tuesday afternoons and Wednesdays we fill all the bags, and then Thursday I head out and I um deliver all the coffee. Okay, that's kind of a rhythm for the week.
SPEAKER_00Um you're still able to take Friday off?
SPEAKER_01No, Friday, all the things that we don't get done Monday through Thursday. I was tell Verta said, I need time to think. And so just you know, trying to think forward where we're going, what's next, um, you know, developing new blends. Uh right now we're working on a new double A, Kenyou A light roast coffee. And so when we get a coffee in, a new one, uh I've got a small sample roaster, and so we'll we'll roast at four or five different temperatures, use different profiles till we get to where uh it's a it's a taste that we like and we feel like our customers will like.
SPEAKER_00Is that the part that you enjoy the most? That's the part I love. Kind of inventing the roast and the flavor and the perfecting.
SPEAKER_01The creativity, it's kind of like a science and an art both. And I I love that part of it.
SPEAKER_00I know you always tell stories about having people come do like taste tests. Yes. I think that you probably I can just imagine you like love watching people try this new blend and kind of mar testing the market a little bit.
SPEAKER_01That's my favorite thing, is you know, we invite from time to time um six to six to eight people in and we do different uh roasts, so we have lot you know, we'll let them try a light, medium, and dark roast. We'll brew it different ways, like in an aero press and pour over and French press, and just to help people understand that there is more than what the coffee is that they're drinking. Because most people settled into one kind of coffee, and that's all they ever drink. And when you begin to introduce them to new um to new profiles like lighter roasts and darker roasts and different ways of drinking it, they realize oh, there's there's more to this than um what I um am used to. I don't have to just drink a cake up.
SPEAKER_00Correct. So what's your favorite personal roast that you make?
SPEAKER_01Oh boy. It it depends on the day. Right now it's the Kenya Double A. Um, I love our Guatemala, is a medium. So the Kenya double A is our my favorite light roast. The Guatemala is my favorite medium, and Papanu Gui is my favorite dark.
SPEAKER_00What's really the difference between a light, medium, and a dark?
SPEAKER_01Um the roasting time. Typically is origin and roasting time. So so like our light roast, we we drop um out of the roaster when it's at about 412 10 to 12 degrees. Um, our medium roast is about 430 degrees, and a dark roast is like 440.
SPEAKER_00So is it true that light roasts have more caffeine than like a dark roast? Because basically you're cooking out more of the caffeine if they roast it longer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That explains a lot because I can drink dark roast all day long. And I usually do. I can drink dark roast at night and still go to sleep, but if I drink the wrong coffee at night, then I'm up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so that I asked you what your favorite is. What's what do you sell the most? Like what templates.
SPEAKER_01So our top seller, like right now, is um breakfast blend. Okay. Just a very neutral and our honey espresso. Okay. Uh we sell a ton of honey espresso.
SPEAKER_00Uh I know at Salt Creek, Jamaica Me Crazy was like a really popular one. Has that taken over?
SPEAKER_01Is there a so that is a flavored coffee?
SPEAKER_00Oh, is that considered a flavored coffee?
SPEAKER_01That is a flavored coffee.
SPEAKER_00Which you make flavored. You like to play around with flavored because you know people like it.
SPEAKER_01Well, so there's a difference between creating a profile for like a lighter medium roast and flavoring coffee.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So basically the way we flavor coffee is after it's roasted, uh, we put s we put oil on it.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And mix it up, and that's what flavors it.
SPEAKER_00I did not realize Jamaican. I thought it was a like a profile. Okay.
SPEAKER_01See, a lot of people uh confuse like Jamaican Blue Mountain with Jamaican Me Crazy, and it's it's a flavored coffee.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01It's it's by far our most popular flavored coffee with you know blueberry, maybe maybe being next.
SPEAKER_00Blueberry is really good. Um it is one of my favorite ones.
SPEAKER_01Um but yeah, we sell a lot of flavored coffee.
SPEAKER_00Uh, your other flavored are the holiday, you have a peppermint. You don't you don't do those all year though? Not peppermint, no. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Most of the others we do, we've got like a Scottish grog and a creme brulee and um creme brulee.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. I've never seen it. You're like, I do this, but I don't want to do it. You do it because you don't think it's because people buy it. People like flavored coffee. You just personally don't like it. A flavored country.
SPEAKER_01Um it's just I enjoy the the real flavors. So like we've got we've got a um last year we had an Ethiopia natural that actually you could taste blueberry in it and it wasn't flavored. That's what I like. Uh but um, you know, we it's part of our business model because it uh generates revenue.
SPEAKER_00So where do you see Salt Creek going over Salt Creek coffee roasting going over the next um couple of years?
SPEAKER_01A couple of years. So, you know, I'm 61 years old, and so I'm we're now we're obviously thinking about transition. Um I don't want to roast coffee when I'm 85 years old, so we're looking at, you know, what does that look like for us? And you know, we would have a son and daughter-in-law that are interested in eventually taking that over. And so that's what we focus on. Yeah, we still focus on the the way we have grown. I'm a terrible salesman, I'm a terrible marketer. Um I know there are people that do marketing that um you know are pretty good. Yeah. Um, so yeah, we've always tried to uh one things that that that we're really big on is underpromise and overdeliver. And so we try to to make sure that we always whatever we uh promise, we will make that happen. So we've tried to work really hard on making our roasting excellent, um, making so coffee is always fresh. So yeah, coffee is something that you can't just like stock up on and then you have enough to last you three weeks. You know, we have we try to keep make so it gets out the door um within a week of when we've roasted it. Um and so we just try to, you know, we've grown by having, I think, creating as good a really good quality coffee at a fair price. You know, we're not we're not elite when it comes to we don't buy super expensive green beans, but we try to buy good quality green beans, uh roast them well, and then sell them at a fair price. And that's kind of how we that's kind of been our business model. Um it's not rocket science.
SPEAKER_00Um what do you have any correlations from ministry to business? Like are there any things, any common themes there or lessons that you learned that you've been able to apply in the business world?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I th I think there are definitely correlations between um ministry and business. You know, there are things that you that I bring from like um working with people, um delegating, um, trusting people, um, your employees.
SPEAKER_00Staying calm when you're getting uh negative feedback. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Staying calm. Um but yeah, a lot of what I learned in ministry, um I think we kind of use business print good good business principles when I was leading the church. You know, they're gonna obviously there are some differences but um similarities well, and we've taken that and applied it in in in our coffee. Yeah, and the main things were uh slow and steady. Um, you know, we make sure that, you know, we we never promote it a lot because we want to make sure that our coffee was good and that uh people liked it. You know, when when I was leading the church, um we try to just uh be very faithful in preaching the word and caring for people, and um growth happens organically. And the business is the same way. When you do a good job, when you treat people well, when you operate with integrity, um I think you you will grow. Um it's a pretty good business model. Because people trust us. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you also like to kind of dabble in inventing other products besides just coffee. What uh like you had brought some a coffee syrup for us to try. Is that still a thing? Or did it kind of just still tell us what is coffee syrup and how do you use it?
SPEAKER_01Um so we last summer played around with um coffee syrup. And so basically what it is is uh we make cold brew. I make about six gallons of cold brew, and then I take it to a gentleman um in Holmes County, he cooks it in uh cane sugar and uh bottles it, and then we have this nice sweet um syrup that you put on ice cream, you put on pancakes, uh, you make a cold uh like a cold brew, like a shaking espresso. It's really good in that, and just for a bunch of different uh it's more concentrated. Yeah, it's like it's like it's like consistency of maple syrup. Okay. So it's like a 69 bricks is what's rated at.
SPEAKER_00So and that's available on your website? Okay. Yes. All right, any other products that you have tried?
SPEAKER_01Um, I mean, as far as just new things, we haven't had time to do new things, you know.
SPEAKER_00I do understand.
SPEAKER_01We um yeah, well, we do we do K cups, which that's you know, 40% of all coffee drinkers will drink a K cup sometime during the Is it only 40%? Only.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think that's too many, but that's you know They did a good job building the brand and making everybody rely on a Keerec machine.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, so we you know we use a we do so our K cup, here's a sales pitch. Um so our K cups are uh made in such a way that we can put fresh ground coffee in our K cup um so that um you actually get a pretty decent cup of coffee because coffee um um lets off gases after it's roasted. And so um most of your big box K cups they have to wait till the coffee is stale um before they can put it in the K cups so so it's not um letting off gases or they would blow up. And our K cups are built, uh were designed to allow you to put fresh coffee in so that you have good K cups.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's good to know the difference. So Garrett did convert me. I don't have a Kerig anymore. I now have an espresso machine, and I have been buying your beans directly from the website. So it is honestly a game changer. I can make lattes at home on my own now.
SPEAKER_01So one of the other things we we uh developed last summer was um uh cold brew packets. Okay. And so cold brew is a big thing, especially in the summertime, but but it's kind of messy. And so we put them in it look just look as a big like a big tea bag. So you throw your tea bag, your your four ounces of coffee into a pitcher, put in 32 ounces of water, wait 18 hours, and when you're done, you pull it out, and you've got your cold brew ready to go.
SPEAKER_00It's like sun tea, but with coffee.
SPEAKER_01So do you have to heat the water up or just so just cold on the uh just ste steep uh leave it on the counter for tw for 18 to 20 hours and uh then leave it in the fridge and you got your cold brew coffee all week. And you put some heavy whipping cream, some of our coffee syrup in it, you shake it a little bit. So good.
SPEAKER_00I like it. Okay, so tell us um what is your your slogan is coffee that connects.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, yeah, so co-coffee connects people, and it's our goal to put a good cup in every conversation. That's kind of because um coffee really does. You think about it, you know, when when I go to church on Sunday morning or I'm I'm in a big group, people, a cup of coffee just makes you feel safer. Like it's like warm and cozy. And so, you know, if that's the case, then let's not drink bad coffee when we're um connecting with people. Let's let's drink good coffee. And we really want, you know, we we we we desire for our coffee to to be uh in in good conversations and and where people are connecting. So that's kind of what our what our hope is.
SPEAKER_00We you know, at Fierce, our mission statement is marketing focused on relationships and results. Maybe you just need to throw some at coffee is always included by default. We could just, you know, maybe subconsciously throw that in there.
SPEAKER_01Throw that in just and coffee.
SPEAKER_00And coffee. Okay, so if somebody wanted to check out your products or find out more about you, where do they go?
SPEAKER_01So most of the local bulk food stores carry our coffee, all of the shops that we um service sell our coffee, and then you can go to our website at sulkrycoffeeco.com.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and yes, you can order everything online. Yep, you can get everything from the K cups to smaller, smaller batches or big bags, all of the sizes. And you ship nationally, right? Like you would ship anywhere.
SPEAKER_01And I mean you could also you can stop in at the roastery and we do retail out of there.
SPEAKER_00Is there certain hours you're open there?
SPEAKER_01No, we if we're there, we'll sell you coffee.
SPEAKER_00Okay, got it.
SPEAKER_01And we have a try before you buy a policy, so you can try.
SPEAKER_00My husband did ask literally last night because we were out of beans. He was like, I wonder if they're open. And I said, I don't know, but we're not finding out, so I'll get some tomorrow. There you go. Okay, well, thank you very much for being on. We love your coffee, and we think everybody else will too. So we would encourage you to go online and check it out.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for tuning in to Torch Talk. And today's story spark something for you. Share it with a colleague, community leader, or future change maker. Until next time, stay inspired, stay intentional, and keep your fire burning.