Standing in a corner of her living room in front of 13 guests on a recent Saturday afternoon, she told the story of the cup of coffee that changed her life.

During an anniversary celebration at a bed-and-breakfast in Lancaster County, Smith explained, her husband, Bill, made her a delicious cup of coffee with a single-cup Flavia machine. She liked the taste so much that she couldn't bring herself to drink the "nasty" pour from the bed-and-breakfast's kitchen.

Smith was sold on Flavia that day in October 2005.

Now, as a "Flavia Ambassador" for the last four months, Smith - with her husband's help - is trying to sell as many others on the pleasures of single-cup, or "on-demand," hot-beverage machines as she can. "I bring it everywhere," including dinner parties and church meetings, she said of the countertop brewer that she loves.

Her spiel that recent afternoon at the Smiths' home in Southampton, Burlington County, led to the sale of 13 machines. One guest, who already owned one, bought five more as gifts for his mother, girlfriend and others.

The Smiths and other ambassadors, who receive a $30 commission on each $129.95 drink-machine sale plus 100 free drinks worth $44, have become an increasingly important part of Flavia's effort to expand the popularity of single-cup coffeemakers into home kitchens, in addition to office break rooms, automobile dealerships, and airport lounges.

Frank LaRusso, business-to-consumer channel director for Flavia - a unit of Mars Inc. with North America headquarters in West Chester - said there were more than 140 ambassadors, "but not all 140 are at the caliber of Melissa," who has sold 61 since October, twice the average.

Flavia employs about 130 in West Chester, where it manufactures the filter packs of coffee grounds and tea leaves used in its machines.

Flavia's biggest competitors are Tassimo and Keurig in a market estimated at $1.5 billion a year and growing 30 percent annually, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month by Tassimo's owner, Kraft Foods Inc.

Most of that growth has been in office break rooms, where there were 437,784 single-cup machines last year, up from 143,400 in 2003, according to a July report in Automatic Merchandiser, a trade publication.

Another Flavia official, Kevin Brick, said single-cup machines had tripled their share of that market from 6 percent to 18 percent over the last four years.

But "on-demand" machines were in just 5 percent of U.S. homes - compared with penetration rates in some European countries that several years ago had reached 70 percent to 80 percent, according to market research firm the NPD Group Inc., of Port Washington, N.Y. Flavia and others have been eyeing the home market as a huge opportunity.

As a unit of privately held Mars - which has $18 billion in annual sales, according to its Web site - Flavia does not give out sales figures, but an expert said the brand was doing well.
 
"Flavia is well-positioned . . . in that they are not at the very top tier in terms of prices, but they've managed to position themselves as one of the premium brands, along with Keurig, Tassimo and Philips," said Peter Goldman, president of NPD Group's operation that tracks home appliances.

Besides the basic model for $129.95, Flavia has a "deluxe" model, sold only at Bloomingdale's, that costs $169.99. The Tassimo costs $169. Keurig machines sell for $99.95 to $279.95, according to the company's Web site.

Industry observers said Flavia was unique in its use of home-selling parties. LaRusso said home selling was an outgrowth of a discontinued mall-kiosk program. The mall sales were strong, but the cost for rent and labor was too high.



When he shut down the mall program last year, the kiosk salespeople told him that they had also been demonstrating and selling machines on their own time, and wanted to keep doing it, LaRusso said.

So Flavia formalized that, creating the ambassador program that gave Melissa Smith the chance to discover her calling.

She said she had always associated "sales with not being honest," but "I realized there is a little salesperson in me."

Find the "Brewing Demand" article online: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20070209_BREWING_DEMAND.html