The following is a conversation that we recently had with the Seeds team.  

How did Seeds get its start?

I think coffee found us. Most of our team didn’t grow up drinking coffee. We started developing a love for coffee when we recognized the impact that coffee has on our world. From there our passion for great coffee began to soar and our mission became clear. Our start in the coffee world was humble. We first roasted on a popcorn roaster with a 50lb bag of Colombian coffee. It was a perfect beginning that laid the groundwork for where we are today and where coffee will take us in the future.

 Share with us the biggest challenge your business faces?

One of the biggest challenges we face as a business is the fact that we have to operate as a business. With the strong desire of building the community that we have, it can be easy at times to overlook that we need to be generating resources to keep the doors open.

How does connecting the farmer with your customers impact your business?

We desire for people to see the impact of what “simply” drinking coffee can do. There are a lot of people who will begin to engage you differently once they feel connected to what you are doing.  They see how they can make an impact on other people by drinking coffee that is directly impacting a particular farmer. Customers will probably be more committed to us being their shop of choice, we let people know who we are and what we do.

What is your favorite origin of coffee?

Our favorite coffee origin is Guatemalan.  Also, it is one of our customer favorites, this coffee has hints of cherry with a chocolate finish, making it a very refreshing cup.

Tell us what sets Seeds apart from other coffee houses?

Seeds looks to connect with many different people. We care about community as much as we do coffee. So we sought to design an environment that you could walk into and feel like you belong even if you weren’t up on all the new coffee terms or wearing the trendiest clothes. We want to pour the best cup of coffee you’ve ever had, but at the same time connect with you and your story.

 What inspires you?

We are inspired by Luke 16:9, the perspective that we can take our resources and make a gospel impact in our local community and all the way to the farmers. Also, we know that with the farmer direct trade method, we are intentionally providing for more than the needs of just ourselves.

Just this week, Seeds had a grand opening for their new cafe that is located right next to their roaster. If you are in the Birmingham area, definitely find Seeds for a cup of coffee and good conversation.

Tell us about how you got started in the coffee world.

I was visiting my Uncle Carl, who owns Agtron, Inc.  He was working on his coffee roast analyzer and had a 10-kilo Samiac set up in his warehouse.  He showed me his roasting process and I was instantly hooked!

Cuvée Coffee is about to celebrate its 15-year anniversary, congratulations! How has the industry changed over 15 years? For the good? For the worse?

There are so many great things that have happened in the past 15 years.  One of my favorite things is the exchange of information.  When I started out, it seemed people in general were very guarded.  Like they had some secret that they did not want anyone to know.  Specialty coffee is still a competitive industry, but I find it to be more friendly competition these days.

Share with us the biggest challenge your business faces?

Our biggest challenges all revolve around growth & keeping up with demand. This is a good challenge to have, but still a challenge.

How does connecting the farmer with your customers impact your business?

I think it is great when our farmer partners visit us and we get to introduce them to the people who are serving their coffee.  We have chefs who make special dishes containing their coffee and our coffee shop partners are always eager (and slightly nervous) to serve the farmer his/her own coffee.

What is your favorite origin of coffee? (or what is your favorite brewing method?)

That has the potential to be a loaded question.  My “favorite” changes regularly and there is no method to that madness.  As far as brewing methods, I am pretty high on our nitro cold brew.  This has been a really fun project!

Share the love…is there someone in the industry that is doing it right? Packaging? Roasting? Sourcing? 

There are so many farmers, roasters & coffee shops doing really great things these days.  It makes it impossible to single out anyone.  I will say that I have been fortunate to have some amazing mentors along my 15-year journey and they are always at the top of my “acceptance speech.”  Carl Staub – for introducing me to coffee and starting me out on the right path.  Joe Monaghan – for taking a chance by hiring me and sharing his experience and knowledge.  Peter Giuliano – for taking so much time with me while I was hungry to learn.  Last, but not least, my wonderful wife, Rashelle.  She stood by me while I followed a path that I had no idea where it lead and she jumped in to help make Cuvée what it is today.  These are all people that are doing it right in so many ways, coffee just happens to be a common thread.  Without any of them, Cuvée Coffee would not be what it is today and I would not be the coffee person that I am today.

We could not agree more regarding the above.  If you have a chance, read more about Cuvée Coffee, or stop by if you find yourself in Texas.

]]> http://www.thrivefarmers.com/roaster-realm-cuvee-coffee/feed/ 0 http://www.thrivefarmers.com/exceeding-fair-trade/ http://www.thrivefarmers.com/exceeding-fair-trade/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:45:49 +0000 K Lander http://www.thrivefarmers.com/?p=3600 As a coffee farmer and one of the founders of THRIVE Farmers, I have inside experience and interact with over 600 coffee farmers in three coffee farming countries. As the THRIVE model grows, the question of how THRIVE is different than Fair Trade is the big question asked repeatedly. Admittedly a complex subject, THRIVE’s goal is being transparent with our ultimate mission of connecting the farmer directly to the consumer.  And if you support Fair Trade, then you have shown that you value producers and we are confident you will love Thrive Farmers.

Kudos to Fair Trade – The impact of Fair Trade within the coffee world has undoubtedly changed the way consumers view their purchase of coffee. Fair Trade has done an incredible job at raising the public awareness about the plight of the farmer and the inequities in the value chain and we believe that, once educated, people genuinely care about what they purchase.

With that said, there is the opportunity to move beyond Fair Trade.

At the core of the Fair Trade model,  Fair Trade was designed as an “insurance policy” to assure that farmers didn’t lose money if the market crashed.  Fair Trade was created to protect farmers from their production costs exceeding the revenue earned for their coffee.  However, in the modern international markets, the Fair Trade “minimum is largely irrelevant”  because commodity prices for coffee are consistently above the Fair Trade minimums. (Fair Trade USA, 2011)

The Fair Trade model also requires farmers to be a part of organizations such as cooperatives. While this structure has many well-documented benefits, it prevents farmers from capitalizing on high market prices.  According to Fair Trade USA, “Though high prices can benefit individual farmers who have coffee to sell, they can challenge producer organizations that signed contracts early in the year….then watched as prices rose to unexpected heights.” (Fair Trade USA, 2011).

Economic research in Mexico and Nicaragua has confirmed this, showing that while Fair Trade provides a kind of safety net, it also prevents farmers from taking advantage of high market prices – and they remain locked in the cycle of poverty, barely making enough to cover the costs of production (Bacon, 2005, 2008; Barham et.al, 2011; Beuchelt and Zeller 2011).

Fair Trade was not designed to help farmers earn more money or participate in the revenue downstream closer to the consumer.  Notwithstanding the Fair Trade movement, many farmers are still leaving coffee because they struggle to make enough to live. By removing middlemen and connecting producers to the market value of coffee they are able to earn far more than ever before, sufficient to support their family, and stay on the land, and produce great coffee. Now what is good for the consumer is also good for the farmer.

One other missing component of many certifications, including Fair Trade is the lack of any connection to quality outcomes. The THRIVE system is an earned system, the farmer is paid a percentage of the sale price, so higher quality coffees that sell for more money allow farmers to earn incrementally more. Farmers are paid every two months based on prorata share of revenue generated to ensure more continuous cash flow. The goal is ultimately to get to monthly payments as opposed to every other month, but systems must be built to ensure accuracy and transparency. Additionally, in the THRIVE Farmers System,  a farmer is directly rewarded for providing the consumer with better quality coffee. Consumer demand for high quality agricultural products is seen in the shift in the food industry toward supporting local farms and buying local. THRIVE is taking the sourcing local movement to a global scale in regards to coffee.

No model or program certification is without area for improvement, so Fair Trade has its value and like our young system there is room to continue to grow and improve the lives of the farmer.  A farmer-direct supply chain is the next great step in being part of a solution to the real economic problems of coffee producers. People joining the Fair Trade movement have “voted” for social justice in coffee.  Now Thrive Farmers gives you a fresh and sustainable response in taking the next step in making a socially just decision with your daily cup.

Ken

Fair Trade USA. (2011)  Fairtrade International Announces Changes to Fair Trade Coffee Minimum Price, Premiums and Standards Fair Trade. [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.fairtradeusa.org/press-room/press_release/fairtrade-international-announces-changes-fair-trade-coffee-minimum-price-p

Bacon, C. “Are Sustainable Coffee Certifications Enough to Secure Farmer Livelihoods?  The Millennium Development Goals and Nicaragua’s Fair Trade Cooperatives.” Globalization 5(2008):259-74.

Barham, B.J., M. Callenes, S. Gitter, J. Lewis and J. Weber. “Fair Trade/Organic Coffee, Rural Livelihoods, and the ‘Agrarian Question’: Southern Mexican Coffee Families in Transition.” World Development 39(2011):134-45.

Beuchelt, T. and M. Zeller. “Profits and Poverty: Certification’s Troubled Link for Nicaragua’s Organic and Fairtrade Coffee Producers.” Ecological Economics 70(2011):1316-24.

We appreciate the Safehouse team constantly challenging  current industry standards and being a leader in creating positive change.   Now with their new lab and new coffee shop we can’t wait to see what they develop next.

Hunt, tell us about how you got started in the coffee world.

I picked up home coffee roasting in 2003 as a hobby diversion from working 90 hours a week – now I work in coffee 90 hours a week.

Share with us the biggest challenge your business faces?

In a word: capacity. It seems to me that business is made of a series of bottlenecks that you have to deal with and overcome. The Thrive Farmers Coffee model has certainly helped us push through our past inventory capacity threshold; our focus now is in filling out our roasting capacity over the next year, culminating in adding another roaster. It’s very exciting and we thrive on challenges.

How does connecting the farmer with your customers impact your business?

It has come at a great time in our local market because our historic downtown businesses and surrounding neighborhoods have been going through a real awakening over the last year to local, organic, and sustainable (LOS) farming practices. Putting a face on our coffee helps our customers realize that LOS is not just a local fad but is actually a global movement, an important concept that is finally coming back into its own, and they get to take part in that every time they come to Safehouse to get a coffee or take a bag home.

What is your favorite origin of coffee? 

My favorite coffee being brewed on the bar changes with my mood but my heart is tied to Honduras. In 2010, Jacob Orr and I got to go to Honduras for a couple of weeks to do some relationship and community building at several coffee-growing villages. I fell in love with the country and the heart of Hondurans in every department that we visited. Oh, and the food – definitely fell in love with the food.

You recently re-opened with some incredible new pieces of brewing equipment. What is your favorite new toy?

Now that’s not a fair question! How do you choose between a hand-made in Seattle, one of a kind custom two-group Slayer, and a hand-made in Ireland/UK next-gen previously unreleased Marco Uber Boiler? I just can’t choose and fortunately, I don’t have to!

Share the love…is there someone in the industry that is doing it right? Packaging? Roasting? Sourcing?

Stateside, I love pretty much everything Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters is doing right now. Overseas, I think Square Mile Coffee Roasters and Marco are pushing the ball down the field in equipment development. At origin, I really admire what Patrick Hughes and Union Micro Finanza are doing in agricultural training and processing research. And of course, at Safehouse we all love what Thrive is doing.

Thanks Hunt, Amanda, Jacob and all of the Safehouse team for sharing with us! If you want to experience forward-thinking coffee in action, definitely seek out Safehouse Coffee Roasters next time you are in the Griffin, Georgia area.

Tell us about how you got started in the coffee world.

My grandmother and mother always loved coffee and I was immersed in the Starbucks culture at a very early age. At 16, I was investing a lot of my spare time in a local downtown ministry that happened to start a small, free coffee bar. They needed someone to be the barista and I jumped in headfirst. We became a community over coffee and it was upon this realization that I committed to the coffee career forever. Over the years I worked in many local shops and developed a lot of my barista skills from La Bella Donna in Anniston, Alabama. I transitioned to Starbucks and had a long and fast-paced three years with them. I have to credit a lot of business skills that I have to my time spent at Starbucks.  After moving around for a while and helping other corporate shops getting started, I ended up at the SCAA event the year the WBC came to Atlanta. Everything happened for me that weekend! I decided to open a roasting company. I met roaster distributors, attended roaster-training classes, networked with importers and gathered everything I needed to get started. US Roaster Corporation hand-made me a 3-kilo natural gas roaster. With these tools, I opened a roasting company and fell totally down the rabbit hole. After three years of roasting, I have shops all over Alabama that carry my coffee. My journey now is sourcing green beans, developing roast profiles on graphs and of course, developing the best business practices.

Tell us what is your biggest challenge your business faces.

The biggest challenge my roasting company has faced has been my battle with balancing the delivery of gourmet coffee to the general public with a self motivated continued hunger for roasting education. More than difficult, the process of education can be exhausting. It’s never ending. To be a great roaster, you must also become a great teacher to your customers.

How does connecting the farmer with your customers change the way you work?

My customers have been so excited about my business relationship with THRIVE Farmers. My roasting these coffees has changed by me taking more care to develop profiles in which they demonstrate their best qualities. I feel like I’m not only representing my roasting skills, but also an entire farm and harvest season’s work. Having the farmer so close in the chain of purchase makes my public relations, roasting education and customer outreach so much easier to conduct business.

What is your favorite origin of coffee?

My favorite origin of coffee changes with the season of life I’m in. Currently I am in love with the Honduras Lempira. It’s full and smooth and easy to brew in whatever you have. I love its versatility. I’m generally a big fan of West Asia. Yemen is always a huge hit with me in a Clever brewer.

What is your favorite brewing method?

My favorite brewing method also changes a great deal throughout the year. If I were on a desert island and could only have one method device of brewed coffee, it would, hands down, be a Leva espresso machine. No words can describe how much I love this machine.

Share the love…what is one of your favorite coffee packaging besides your brand?

Raven’s Brew Coffee – they have the coolest bag designs. I’ve always been jealous of their graphic designer. I really like Jittery Joe’s in Athens too. They have the cans of coffee that are old school and awesome.

Thanks to Sarah for sharing her love of coffee through this blog and through all of her coffee endeavors. Do you have any questions for Sarah?

Photo by Gary Walts / The Post-Standard

Tell us about how you got started in the coffee world.
I returned home from a 2004 trip to Guatemala having seen the transformative effect that coffee can have on an entire culture firsthand. This trip inspired me to bring that home to Syracuse where I purchased a homemade 8lb. batch roaster and started roasting in my parents’ basement, selling the beans to family and friends. Today I am  roasting at a space known as La Roasteria for my Café Kubal shops.

How does connecting the farmer with your customers impact your business?
When our customers know more about our coffee and the farmers that grew it, we have a common bond. It makes my work more personal and appreciated. When I serve it to a customer that knows more about the farmer, it feels better because the customers respects the coffee as much as I do.

What is your favorite origin of coffee?
They are all my children.

What is your favorite brewing method?
It’s different for each coffee. I like the Honduras in a 12oz Chemex.

Share the love…give a shout out to someone in the coffee world who is doing it right.
I had a great espresso at Third Rail Coffee near NYU. They were using Stumptown’s beans.

Recently, through a joint effort, THRIVE Farmers and Café Kubal  hosted a live Skype call connecting Café Kubal’s customers with Marco Tulio, a THRIVE Farmer from Honduras.

Customers had the opportunity to ask questions such as “What is the one big issue that coffee growers like yourself are facing in the world of hyper globalization and multi-channel operations?” and “How does the cultivation of coffee plants impact the environment?”  On-going conversations, like on this Skype call, where the coffee farmer, barista and the end coffee consumer come together will lead to achieving the best quality in the cup.

Thank you Matt for sharing today, do you have a question for Matt at Cafe Kubal? Ask away.

The weekend was spent understanding all things coffee, with the highlight of the weekend introducing Earth Fare to the farmers who grew the coffee that is now on their shelves.   The seed to cup experience included the labor intense, hand-picking of ripe coffee cherries and ended in community celebration with a traditional pig roast!  Everyone at THRIVE Farmers sends a thank you to Earth Fare for the service and dedication to the quality of coffee you provide to your Earth Fare customers.

View the full photo album of our weekend together directly at our Facebook page.

Ken

Colby Barr, co-owner of Verve Coffee Roasters, made an inspirational speech and represented the industry with his humble acceptance on behalf of the category. Thank you to Sprudge.com  for transcribing and sharing the full speech and can be read via  Sprudge.com.

Our favorite quote from Barr and which resonates with THRIVE,  ”You need to do what’s right because it’s just that – and then use economics as the leverage to push it.”  So true, Colby Barr, so true.

Congratulation to all the winners, you are industry pioneers and provide a voice for the coffee farmer which is so important! The 2013 Good Food Award Winners in the coffee category are:

1000 Faces Coffee, Ethiopia – Shakiso Mora Mora, Georgia
Case Coffee Roasters, Kenya – Nyeri Gaturiri Co-Op-Peaberry, Oregon
Cuvee Coffee, El Salvador – El Molino Witness Project, Texas
Evans Brothers Coffee, Ethiopia – Yirgacheffe Birhanu, Idaho
Flying Goat Coffee, Ethiopia – Wottuna Boltuma, California
Gimme! Coffee, Colombia – Finca San Luis La Gloria, New York
Heart Roasters, Ethiopia – Yukro & Kenya – Ndumberi, Oregon
Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, Kenya – Gichathaini & Kenya – Kangocho, Illinois & California
Joe, Ethiopia – Camp, New York
Joe Bean Coffee Roasters, Nicaragua – Don Roger Pachi, New York
Kickapoo Coffee, Ethiopia – Organic Yirgacheffe Haru Cooperative, Wisconsin
Panther Coffee, Colombia – Finca El Ventilador, Florida
Portland Roasting Coffee, Ethiopia – Organic Sidamo, Oregon
PT’s Coffee Roasting Co., Ethiopia – Nanno Challa Heirloom, Kansas
Verve Coffee Roasters, Ethiopia – Birhanu & Panama – Elida Estate Gesha,California

February 20th & 21st  - 2-Day Workshop (8 hrs each day)

THRIVE FARMERS Coffee is dedicated to educating coffee enthusiasts like you on all aspects of coffee – from sustainable farming practices at origin to brewing best practices in order to achieve the best quality cup of coffee. Because education and quality go hand-in-hand, our classes are key to growing your coffee knowledge and developing your craft.

Become expertly educated in the science behind brewing in combination with the art of utilizing master brewing techniques:

• Personal instruction from industry expert, Rob Tuttle, 2009-2012 WBC Certified Judge, Certified SCAA Lead Instructor & USBC Head Judge
• Hands-on class participation
• Written and practical testing for tangible results
• Opportunity to explore current SCAA advancements

Baristas will have a clear understanding of all things coffee – from seed to cup. This class is designed to build upon the basic barista knowledge and provide master concepts to ensure brewing techniques meet and surpass industry standards.

SPACE IS LIMITED – Register and reserve your spot by contacting us at connect@thrivefarmers.com today!

THRIVE Farmers launched a year ago with 2 coffees directly from Costa Rica – Monteverde and San Rafael.  Today, we proudly offer over 12 coffees including incredible selections from Honduras and Guatemala.  Partnerships have grown at origin and THRIVE Farmers is now a multi-national movement of 625+ farmers bringing their coffee directly to you the coffee lover.

We recently completed a labor of love, a video that shares the story of THRIVE, showcasing to the world why Thrive Farmers exists.   Please enjoy and share this with others - Watch the video now.

As a founder of this movement and a coffee farmer, I want to thank you for seeing the vision with us, and  I invite you to continue to follow along.  Share the cup, do your Christmas shopping and buy direct online at  Thrive Farmers (you have a few days left!).  Let your gift have a double impact this year, and support our farmers who make one-half of the amount you pay Thrive Farmers for the coffee.  This is 5 to 10 times Fair Trade.  The quality is amazing!

We so appreciate each of you, and thank you for sending coffee to your loved ones for the holidays!  We are excited for the future, and are proud to mark this date in THRIVE’s history with you.

Ken