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About Fire Department Coffee
Founded in 2016 by Navy veteran and firefighter Luke Schneider, Fire Department Coffee has a clear mission: provide better coffee to those who serve. What started with supplying fresh-roasted coffee to local fire stations rapidly expanded into a nationwide operation. Today, Fire Department Coffee boasts presence in nearly 10,000 retail locations—including Walmart US and Canada, Albertsons, and Kroger—and supports communities through initiatives like burn camps. Committed to delivering premium beans and giving back, the brand needed its online presence to match its high-quality product and mission-driven ethos.
The Challenge
For a coffee brand, the inability to let customers “taste” the product online meant relying heavily on high-quality images, compelling visuals, and storytelling. This rich content was essential but also taxing on site performance, causing longer load times and a less-than-ideal shopping experience. With critical sales periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday on the horizon, Fire Department Coffee needed a strategy to ensure site speed wouldn’t slow down customer satisfaction—or revenue.
The Strategic Partnership
To solve this performance dilemma, Fire Department Coffee partnered with Levitate Foundry, a leading full-service growth marketing agency focused on helping fast-growing omnichannel brands scale efficiently. Together, Levitate Foundry and the Fire Department Coffee team sought a solution that wouldn’t compromise the brand’s visual-driven storytelling.
Enter Nostra AI, whose powerful ecommerce optimization platform seamlessly complemented the strategic guidance provided by Levitate Foundry. Working collaboratively, Levitate Foundry and Nostra AI focused on accelerating site speed, optimizing images, and ensuring a top-tier user experience.
Key Focus Areas:
- Advanced Image Optimization: Maintaining visual quality while accelerating load times
- Sophisticated Caching Strategies: Enhancing overall performance and ensuring stability during peak traffic
- Intelligent Bot Handling: Improving SEO and boosting organic discoverability
Throughout the process, Levitate Foundry’s account management and strategic counsel ensured the Fire Department Coffee team maximized Nostra AI’s capabilities. The result was a streamlined, high-performance ecommerce environment that elevated both customer experience and conversion rates.
The Results
The trio’s collaboration paid off, delivering substantial improvements across all key performance metrics:
- Faster Load Times, Better Experience: Time to First Byte (TTFB) improved by 85%, and overall page load times decreased by 20%.
- Dramatic Conversion Rate Growth: Conversions jumped from 2.22% to 3.25%, a remarkable 97% increase.
“It is night and day. With Nostra having all of these images, it’s been fantastic to just severely reduce that load time.”
— Marie Stravinskas, Community Manager, Fire Department Coffee
“Since partnering with Nostra, FDC’s conversion rate has increased an entire percent, from 2.22% to 3.25%. This is a huge increase in revenue, especially when considering the increased spending that they have been implementing in the second half of 2024.”
— Kristin Colon, Account Manager, Levitate Foundry
The improved site performance proved especially critical during high-traffic sales events. Both Nostra AI and Levitate Foundry provided proactive recommendations and support to ensure the site remained resilient, delivering a consistent, fast, and visually immersive shopping experience.
Looking Ahead
With Levitate Foundry’s strategic guidance and Nostra AI’s optimization technology, Fire Department Coffee successfully balanced its rich, visual ecommerce approach with top-tier performance and speed. As the brand continues to expand across digital and retail channels, this partnership stands as a model for how mission-driven brands can deliver exceptional online experiences—without sacrificing speed, quality, or conversion potential.
