Coffee of Grace

“It was September of 2011 when this all started. I had the plea­sure of meet­ing President Kagame of Rwanda at an inti­mate gath­er­ing at a friend’s house. I had never heard any­one, in pol­i­tics or not, speak so pas­sion­ately about his peo­ple and his coun­try. The sim­plic­ity he spoke was inspir­ing.” This led Grace Hightower De Niro to meet with the Rwandan ambas­sador in New York to learn more about Rwanda and its peo­ple. Of course, one of the first things to come to mind in con­ver­sa­tions on Rwanda is the geno­cide only a few decades ago.

The ambassador’s wife touched Grace with this phrase… “They had to move on.” Grace had asked… “How do you move on with some­one who is stand­ing next to you who has killed your par­ents, or maybe your child or sib­lings?” The ambassador’s wife responded, “It’s sim­ple. You either choose to live or not live.” Grace con­tin­ued, “For me that stuck with me because I know that we have a great deal of chal­lenges here in America and we think our chal­lenges are so mon­u­men­tal (and some are), but noth­ing by com­par­i­son, with what they have gone through. It really started to make me think about my per­sonal life and come to some real­iza­tions about liv­ing. These peo­ple really do live. They really do live in the moment.” This spurred Grace on to con­tinue her quest. Though cof­fee had not been the focus of her thoughts ini­tially, she told me, “Rwanda got into my spirit, into my soul.” A friend of hers rec­om­mended she get into cof­fee. “Really?” was her sur­prised response.

Grace con­tin­ued brain­storm­ing with the Rwandan ambas­sador. “He explained to me there would be a lot of ben­e­fits for edu­ca­tion and health­care by work­ing with Rwandan cof­fee farm­ers.” She had never tasted Rwandan cof­fee and was rec­om­mended by the ambas­sador to try the Rwandan café in New York called “Bourbon Coffee.” Though she was not famil­iar with the café, her hus­band was.

Grace con­tin­ued, “Something just stuck with me. I had seen the movie, “Hotel Rwanda,” which also stuck with me, long before my meet­ing the pres­i­dent and my heart went out. I couldn’t quite fathom, how could this hap­pen? And the world didn’t really stop it. That got into my soul as well.”

“I came to real­ize that it is far more reward­ing to work your land with your hands than to accept hand­outs. One of the things I was really impressed with was when President Kagame said he did not want his county to be depen­dent upon aid. He wanted trade. I like that idea. I think empow­er­ing peo­ple is the way to go. I don’t think you empower peo­ple when you give a handout.”

“My vision with the cof­fee project (and there is some­thing added to it every day) is that I would like to see women and more young girls given the oppor­tu­nity (not exclud­ing males) to do busi­ness, to learn, to be edu­cated, to have vision, to have voice.”

In the short time Coffee of Grace has been pur­chas­ing cof­fees and pay­ing pre­mium prices more than 9,000 cof­fee fam­i­lies have been impacted. “We were told by the peo­ple in Rwanda that the sale of the cof­fee had helped build the local school.”

Grace focused on try­ing to find wash­ing sta­tions and farm­ers that are pro­vid­ing [social] ser­vices. However, she did empha­size, “Quality comes first. It has to be qual­ity cer­ti­fied by us, mean­ing it has to be some­thing we would want to per­son­ally con­sume. All of the cof­fee is Q-Graded at 85 or above.”

Throughout this jour­ney in cof­fee, Grace has insisted on two guid­ing prin­ci­ples: “The qual­ity had to be really, really good. And it had to be sus­tain­able.” When asked about expand­ing beyond Rwanda, Grace shared, “I am very open to work­ing in other cof­fee ori­gins and espe­cially work­ing with women farm­ers in these coun­tries.” Her part­ing thought was, “I would like to achieve suc­cess, sus­tain­abil­ity, eco­nomic invest­ment, social aware­ness, and a new way of doing busi­ness while hav­ing a fab­u­lous time. It is a lit­tle bit of fun, and a lit­tle scary.”

About Grace
Grace Hightower De Niro is an American mother, phil­an­thropist, actress and singer.  As a board mem­ber of the New York Women’s Foundation and a mem­ber of the International Women’s Coffee Alliance, Grace strives to empower women and their com­mu­ni­ties to achieve mean­ing­ful and sus­tain­able lives through their work. Grace’s love of cof­fee and ded­i­ca­tion to empow­er­ing women world­wide led her to launch “Grace Hightower & Coffees of Rwanda,” with the mis­sion of enhanc­ing the lives of the Rwandan peo­ple by pro­vid­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to mar­ket their unique prod­ucts to the world. Grace also serves as a board mem­ber of the New York Fund for Public Schools, as well as a mem­ber of Ronald Perlman’s Women’s Heart Health Advisory Council. The New York Women’s Foundation and the American Cancer Society of New York City have hon­ored her for her work and ded­i­ca­tion. Grace resides in New York City with her hus­band, actor Robert De Niro, and their two children.

Tips and Tools to Manage Risk for Roasters

The cof­fee indus­try is multi-faceted; with far rang­ing areas of exper­tise, vary­ing spe­cial­ties and a mas­sive array of knowl­edge. The cof­fee roaster is more than meets the eye…or cup. The strate­gies and finan­cials are just as impor­tant as the craft and prop­erly man­ag­ing risk can make or break a roast­ing business.

Risk man­age­ment can be broad for a roaster (and pos­si­bly over­whelm­ing) but if approached cor­rectly, can become sec­ond nature. Ways to man­age risk could be as gen­eral as mak­ing the right rela­tion­ships, or spe­cial­ized, like mak­ing use of the “C” mar­ket. Regardless of the approach, you must first iden­tify the risk, and then find a way to avoid it, reduce its effects or accept its results.

Navigating the “C”: Swim, Don’t Sink

Coffee futures have traded in New York since 1882, and cof­fee is famously known as the sec­ond most traded com­mod­ity after oil. Its longevity makes it a piece of his­tory, but its “intra­day volatil­ity” makes it a “favorite for day traders over the years,” accord­ing to the InterContinental Exchange (ICE). For par­tic­i­pat­ing roast­ers, there is a crit­i­cal need for risk man­age­ment when deal­ing with the market.

When a roaster is involved in the futures mar­ket, they become “com­mer­cial traders” and can play a role in deter­min­ing the price. “First and fore­most roast­ers should keep in mind that their chief pur­pose in using mech­a­nisms such as futures and options trad­ing is to secure desired cof­fee qual­ity sup­ply at rea­son­ably tar­geted lev­els,” says Carl Leonard, V. P. Green Coffee Procurement at Louisiana-based Community Coffee Company.

The futures mar­ket also allows roast­ers to trans­fer risk. Coffee roast­ers are “short” the mar­ket, as they are at risk if Arabica prices increase. The risk can be trans­ferred, or off­set, if a roaster goes long a futures con­tract. “Hedging done care­fully can be a means of pro­tect­ing a com­pany from excess risk, how­ever spec­u­la­tive trad­ing is like going to the Casino which can have very neg­a­tive results,” says Leonard. “If you are a novice, your best course of action could be to align your­self with a com­pe­tent cof­fee com­modi­ties bro­ker who has years of expe­ri­ence with cof­fee hedging.”

Joseph Fernandes III, Vice President of New Jersey-based Socafe, is the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion to work for the com­pany after his father brought it to the US from Angola nearly 26 years ago. He has recently made the deci­sion to become more involved with the “C” mar­ket and echoes Leonard’s sen­ti­ment. “I’m learn­ing from, and cur­rently receiv­ing help from, some­one who knows how to suc­cess­fully nav­i­gate the mar­ket.” By part­ner­ing up with some­one who can help Socafe man­age risks, Fernandes believes “2013 is going to bring change within the company.”

It’s Not Complicated: Easier Relationships

“Global but con­nected” is how the cof­fee indus­try was ini­tially por­trayed to me. Relationships are imper­a­tive to bet­ter busi­ness prac­tices, no mat­ter what your role. Roasters, how­ever, are prob­a­bly the most con­nected. With direct links to pro­duc­ers, importers, dis­trib­u­tors and retail­ers, the cof­fee roaster must take advan­tage of its rank in pop­u­lar­ity. The risk aspect is mostly asso­ci­ated with the pur­chase of green beans.

“Buying cof­fee for a good sized roaster means mak­ing use of siz­able sums of money. Making sure that you are get­ting the cor­rect con­sis­tent qual­ity, and on time deliv­ery is of extreme impor­tance,” advises Leonard. “Selecting the right pro­duc­ers, coop­er­a­tives, exporters, Importers, ocean going ship­ping com­pa­nies, truck­ing com­pa­nies and ware­houses to partner/work with is essen­tial. Having con­sis­tent pro­ce­dures in place to check grade and cup qual­ity to insure you are receiv­ing cof­fee of the value that you have pur­chased is a must.” The bet­ter your rela­tion­ships are, the more effi­cient your busi­ness will be.

Fernandes makes it a point to travel to ori­gin at least 3–4 times per year, meet­ing directly with pro­duc­ers, coop­er­a­tives and exporters. “This allows me to be spe­cific with what I want and com­pet­i­tive with my prices,” he says. He reduces his risk by prop­erly del­e­gat­ing logis­tics he doesn’t feel com­fort­able han­dling to importers who he knows and trusts. “I can com­mit to pur­chas­ing upfront, which moti­vates them to give me a fair price.”

It is crit­i­cal to work with trust­wor­thy com­pa­nies for your own man­age­ment of risks, and to ensure the rep­u­ta­tion of your com­pany mir­rors that of your affil­i­ates. “Your word is your bond, only do busi­ness with peo­ple of their word. Most times in the cof­fee busi­ness a signed con­tract is what fol­lows, busi­ness is actu­ally done upon one’s word,” states Leonard.

Actions Speak Louder: Tactics and Techniques

For most roast­ers, buy­ing prac­tices have changed dra­mat­i­cally in the last few years. Information is avail­able more quickly, spark­ing a new­found fast-paced, com­pet­i­tive mar­ket with every­one look­ing for the same thing: qual­ity cof­fee at a fair price. “Where I used to look at con­sumer demand as a main indi­ca­tor, I now focus on the behav­iors of the importers,” says Fernandes. “Conventional indi­ca­tors are almost thrown out the win­dow.” Differential prices went from being avail­able for a few days to five min­utes, “you have to act fast or you miss out,” Fernandes empha­sizes. A good plan is to align your­self with mul­ti­ple bro­kers who may be deal­ing with rejec­tions or mishaps with inven­tory. If your rela­tion­ships are strong, this can be a risk free way to get cof­fee for under mar­ket value.

If your roast­ing busi­ness is lucra­tive enough, it pays to stock pile inven­tory and con­stantly rotate through sup­plies. This puts pre­cau­tions in place that will allow your com­pany to over­come var­i­ous sup­ply issues, like sud­den price move­ments, nat­ural dis­as­ters, or poor weather cycles. Socafe learned to spread their inven­tory through­out mul­ti­ple ware­houses. “When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, those who kept their inven­tory solely in that one ware­house in Kearny, New Jersey that was dam­aged, must have faced major set­backs,” says Fernandes.

If your roast­ing busi­ness is involved with the pri­vate label sec­tor, you can min­i­mize the risk involved with those niche cus­tomers by sim­ply edu­cat­ing them. Fernandes sug­gests empow­er­ing them as much as pos­si­ble. “Tell them why the prices are the way they are. Explain to them man­u­fac­tur­ing costs, trans­porta­tion costs, etc. Ensuring trans­parency can ensure con­tin­ued business.”

Last, but incred­i­bly far from least, the uti­liza­tion of proper tools to help man­age risk is cru­cial in today’s strug­gling eco­nomic times. Many firms, con­trac­tors and web­sites can help a roaster under­stand, and ben­e­fit from, the futures and options cof­fee mar­ket. Coffee roast­ers should uti­lize the mar­ket to trans­fer risk and help deter­mine cur­rent prices. Combining this with other strate­gies could bring a bal­anced under­stand­ing of the global cof­fee picture.

“While it is the futures mar­ket first and fore­most,” admits Fernandes, “that is just a snap­shot of the present moment and a roaster can­not react to the cur­rent screen. Therefore, we need another way to iden­tify trends.” Talking directly to importers, as pre­vi­ously men­tioned, is key, as they are on the fore­front of it all. Watch weather pat­terns in cof­fee grow­ing regions to stay ahead of crop qual­ity con­di­tions. Get on the ground infor­ma­tion about who’s sell­ing, who’s hold­ing and what prices they are look­ing for. Gather infor­ma­tion from ports of ori­gin to gauge what they’re send­ing over. And, as Fernandes advises, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket…all it takes is one spec­u­la­tor to ruin it.”

“Join per­ti­nent cof­fee orga­ni­za­tions and asso­ci­a­tions to meet your roast­ing peers and lead­ing sup­pli­ers in the indus­try,” says Leonard. “Continuously attend Coffee Organization and Association train­ing ses­sions to gain depth of knowl­edge required to be suc­cess­ful as a roaster. Read indus­try books and trade mag­a­zines to stay in tune to cur­rent devel­op­ments in our indus­try. Spend time at cof­fee ori­gin and learn cof­fee from the Producers point of view. Work closely with your sales and mar­ket­ing depart­ment to help edu­cate them about the world of cof­fee and what might appeal to the con­sumers that you are try­ing to reach.”

Alexis Rubinstein, Senior Editor INTL FCStone/CoffeeNetwork

Coffee Outlook for 2013 from Rabobank

Coffee prices are expected to increase in 2013 find­ing sup­port from increas­ing global demand and tight­en­ing stock lev­els. Arabica prices are down over 52% from the 2011 high. However, a poten­tial deficit in the 2013–14 sea­son, as well as an already large short spec­u­la­tor posi­tion, will tem­per fur­ther down­side. Robusta mar­ket prices are con­tin­gent on the Vietnamese crop, and as the cur­rent out­look is pos­i­tive, major ral­lies are not antic­i­pated, but expect mod­er­ately higher prices in 2013. The price dif­fer­ence between cof­fee vari­eties has set­tled to a level of sta­bil­ity in the com­ing year. The range-bound out­look for the spread between Arabica and Robusta prices in 2013 is a fore­cast for less volatile price action in the Arabica mar­ket. Coffee con­sump­tion has not decreased, but demand has largely moved away from washed Arabica to Brazilian-natural Arabica or Robusta, which has shifted dif­fer­en­tials closer. This dynamic is a focal point in our fore­casts for mostly lat­eral but pos­i­tive move­ment in 2013.

Arabica fun­da­men­tals are fore­cast to be in sur­plus for 2012 and 2013, which will be a bear­ish aspect weigh­ing on prices in late 2012 and early 2013 due to investor short­ing and hand-to-mouth roaster buy­ing. Market prices may hit a bot­tom in 2012, with a pos­i­tive out­look in 2013 based on new sea­son fun­da­men­tals and increased buy­ing. The fun­da­men­tal fore­cast for Arabica beans in 2012–2013 is for a 4.1 million-bag sur­plus, while early pro­jec­tions for 2013 and 2014 sug­gest a likely deficit. The Arabica price out­look in 2013 is pos­i­tive due to this poten­tial deficit, antic­i­pated roaster buy­ing and Brazilian farm­ers hold­ing sup­ply off the market.

Farmers in Brazil still have a sig­nif­i­cant amount of 2012 Arabica har­vest to sell on the mar­ket, but given their well-capitalized posi­tion and gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies for stor­age, we antic­i­pate the sup­ply from Brazil will arrive only if prices are attrac­tive. The spec­u­la­tor gross short position—near his­toric highs—is expected to be pared back in 2013 as the deficit sea­son looms. The gross short posi­tion is equiv­a­lent to 14 mil­lion bags of cof­fee, and a reduc­tion in 2013 will likely sup­port futures prices. With the Arabica mar­ket in sur­plus, buy­ers have dis­ci­plined roast­ers in 2012, likely based on the assump­tion that the over­sup­ply will result in a fur­ther reduc­tion in prices. The out­look for 2013 calls for end users to increase buy­ing to build stocks, which will sup­port a retrac­ing in the market.

Market expec­ta­tions for the 2013 Brazilian Arabica crop will drive roaster buy­ing and spec­u­la­tor posi­tion­ing in the com­ing year. While early devel­op­ment is pos­i­tive, it will be an off-season crop, poten­tially shift­ing the Arabica fun­da­men­tal bal­ance into deficit. The scale of the season-to-season pro­duc­tion shift has fallen in the past decade due to agro­nomic prac­tices. The dif­fer­ence between on– and off-season crops is antic­i­pated to con­tinue to shrink in the com­ing years, but given the scale of Brazilian pro­duc­tion rel­a­tive to global Arabica output—forecasted at 46% in 2012 and 2013—the off-season har­vest will still likely bring about a global deficit in the com­ing sea­sons. Also impact­ing the sup­ply of Arabica in 2013 will be lower incen­tives from prices. Multi-year pro­duc­tion highs of Arabica in Central America, Asia and Africa in 2012 and 2013 were in part a reac­tion to the high­est nom­i­nal sea­son aver­age New York price ever. In 2013, antic­i­pate lower New York val­ues and lower washed dif­fer­en­tials will reduce incen­tives to use inputs and thus mod­er­ate yield poten­tial in the short term. With reduced yields and an off-season Brazilian har­vest, a high prob­a­bil­ity of an expected Arabica deficit sup­port­ing New York prices in 2013 is predicted.

The shift­ing demand pro­file in the cof­fee mar­ket will keep washed Arabica prices and dif­fer­en­tials under pres­sure and sup­port Brazilian Naturals and Robusta mar­kets in 2013. Coffee-demand growth in 2013 is likely to be con­cen­trated in emerg­ing and non­tra­di­tional mar­kets as it has been for the past cou­ple of sea­sons. Given the price con­scious con­sumers in these grow­ing mar­kets, roast­ers are expected to focus on lower-priced beans, there­fore max­i­miz­ing Robusta use. The 2010–2011 price rally in New York sup­ported washed Arabica pro­duc­tion. This, cou­pled with demand mov­ing towards Brazilian Naturals, is pro­jected to result in an over­sup­ply of washed Arabica. In the short term, over­sup­ply is illus­trated by the New York exchange inven­to­ries grow­ing 52% in the sec­ond half of 2012 as ori­gins sell to the board due to mod­est phys­i­cal buy­ing inter­est. The post-boom Arabica mar­ket leaves Brazilian sup­ply in demand while higher cost washed sup­ply exceeds demand. In 2013, the mar­ket will have to pay Brazilian farm­ers higher prices to draw out sup­ply while pro­duc­ers of washed Arabica will find the mar­ket over­sup­plied. This has resulted in dif­fer­en­tials mov­ing closer together, a sit­u­a­tion that is likely to remain in 2013.

The Robusta mar­ket has been bal­anced with strong demand growth and large Vietnamese har­vests, and in 2013 we see this dynamic con­tin­u­ing. Expect the mar­ket to be sup­ported by increased con­sump­tion, espe­cially at ori­gin and in Asia. In our view, the sub­sti­tu­tion of Arabica for Robusta in 2010 and 2011, which esti­mated at between 3 mil­lion and 5 mil­lion bags glob­ally, was a dynamic not expected to occur again. If the Robusta/Arabica price spread remains near cur­rent lev­els, we do not expect con­sump­tion to shift back to Arabica, and we do not expect fur­ther sub­sti­tu­tion. Robusta demand is fore­cast to increase 3.8% in 2012 and 2013, down from 11% the pre­vi­ous year, and will likely grow at a sim­i­lar pace in the fol­low­ing sea­son if prices are near our fore­casts. Robusta mar­ket fun­da­men­tals are fore­cast to be in a mod­est deficit of 204,000 bags in 2012–2013. The con­tin­ued growth in demand is expected to be coun­tered by a large Vietnamese crop of 27 mil­lion bags in the new season.

The spec­u­la­tor gross long posi­tion in the Robusta mar­ket has been pared back sig­nif­i­cantly since its peak in July 2012 as the sup­ply out­look improved. If Vietnamese and Indonesian crops meet expec­ta­tions, investors will likely keep reduc­ing long posi­tions. A sharp rever­sal in the fund posi­tion­ing is prob­a­ble if bull­ish sup­ply news arrives, and con­se­quently our sense for price spike risks in Robusta are ele­vated. With our base case Robusta sup­ply sce­nario for 2012 and 2013, we do not antic­i­pate investors increas­ing the net long lev­els, but we expect com­mer­cial buy­ing and the need to encour­age Robusta pro­duc­tion to be sup­port­ive fac­tors, result­ing in increas­ing prices in 2013. Early sea­son har­vest pres­sure cou­pled with fund liq­ui­da­tion is fore­cast to give way to com­mer­cial buy­ing sup­port­ing futures prices.

Keith Flury, Senior Analyst Soft Commodities for Rabobank

Arabica dif­fer­en­tials have shifted closer together as demand has moved from washed to naturals

Robusta is fore­cast to move to deficit in 2012/13 while Arabica will be in surplus

In Memoriam

The cof­fee indus­try pays respect to and remem­bers with great admi­ra­tion the life of a man who played a very for­ma­tive role in the devel­op­ment and advance­ment of spe­cialty cof­fee. Salim Janna, or “Salo” as many of his friends called him, started his cof­fee career by join­ing the Colombian Coffee Federation in Bogotá in June, 1983. Shortly there­after, he received his first pro­mo­tion and was trans­ferred to the Colombian Coffee Federation in New York where a few short months later he was appointed President.

Salim was one of the pio­neers and pro­mot­ers of the 100% Colombian Coffee pro­gram. He led an adver­tis­ing and pro­mo­tional cam­paign which posi­tioned Juan Valdez among the most rec­og­nized icons in the US, and Colombian Coffee among the top qual­ity cof­fees in the world.

In 1995, he and his wife Marcela decided to move their fam­ily back home to Colombia. Salim wanted to con­tinue his career in cof­fee and decided to invest in Café Condor. In 1996, Salim became its CEO and major­ity investor and under his lead­er­ship the com­pany became a pio­neer­ing exporter of spe­cialty coffee.

Salim was actively involved with the SCAA where he par­tic­i­pated in the International Relations Committee as well as on the board of direc­tors. He was also one of the founders of the Colombian Specialty Association. His pas­sion for qual­ity showed in his many con­tri­bu­tions to the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI), where he served as respected trustee for a period of thir­teen con­sec­u­tive years, until he retired from the board two years ago. He was very instru­men­tal in help­ing CQI to attain many of its suc­cesses and his wis­dom and coun­sel were highly val­ued. He was a straight shooter whose com­mit­ment to qual­ity was unwavering.

Salim was a go-getter. He would break­fast in Bogotá, be seen at an after­noon meet­ing in New York, and later dine with clients in L.A before tak­ing the red-eye back to Miami or Barranquilla. His intrin­sic sense for oppor­tu­ni­ties com­bined with his tenac­ity and deter­mi­na­tion made him a suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur at a very young age. He invested in the port of Barranquilla as well as in coal min­ing in Colombia’s inte­rior where he acquired a coal trad­ing com­pany, serv­ing as its CEO. He also served on sev­eral boards in the energy indus­try and health care sec­tor in Colombia. When Salim was engaged in an indus­try he com­mit­ted him­self to mak­ing it bet­ter, and to mak­ing a difference.

He had an insa­tiable appetite for learn­ing and would share with friends and col­leagues the case study learn­ings from his annual sojourns to Harvard Business School’s exec­u­tive edu­ca­tion pro­grams. He was very pas­sion­ate about the impor­tance of life­long learn­ing and to work­ing hard to achieve your goals. He cer­tainly mod­eled those values.

Yet, for all the accom­plish­ments of his career, the sin­gle most impor­tant focus of his life, and the only real mea­sure of suc­cess that was impor­tant to him was the love of his fam­ily. Salim’s wife Marcela and his three sons, Nicolas, Julian and Gabriel were the cen­ter of his uni­verse and the source of his joy and inspi­ra­tion. He beamed when he spoke of them and was so very proud of the life they shared. Salim was a devoted and lov­ing hus­band and father. He had a heart that was big­ger than his entire body and it over­flowed with gen­eros­ity and warmth and acceptance.

And so, we pay trib­ute to the con­tri­bu­tions of an indus­try leader who so many of us had the priv­i­lege of call­ing friend. Let us honor his mem­ory by our stead­fast pur­suit of qual­ity and in our under­stand­ing of what is really impor­tant in life. We shall carry him our hearts always.

The View

As I am prepar­ing this col­umn for pub­li­ca­tion, about half the pop­u­la­tion is endur­ing the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy as it comes ashore in New Jersey. The destruc­tion is already exten­sive and we haven’t heard from the inland areas that are bound to expe­ri­ence wide rang­ing power out­ages, flood­ing, and loss of life and prop­erty. We sin­cerely wish all our friends and busi­ness asso­ciates in the Mid-Atlantic, New England, Great Lakes, and Canada God speed and good luck dur­ing these ter­ri­ble few hours and the days and weeks of clean­ing up ahead.

Congratulations!!!
Congratulations to Basic Health International for receiv­ing the most clicks in our Making A Difference issue that is pub­lished on-line every July. Basic Health International will receive a $1000 dona­tion from the CoffeeTalk Foundation and our warm con­grat­u­la­tions. Basic Health International devel­oped, along with stu­dents from Hampshire College in Massachusetts, a trans­portable light­weight gyne­co­log­i­cal exam table made from inex­pen­sive mate­ri­als. The table folds up and can be car­ried like a back­pack into remote areas that may not have seen women’s med­ical care for gen­er­a­tions. The frame also has pouches for car­ry­ing the cryother­apy tanks and sup­plies
In the words of BHI…
“Imagine paint­ing a 5-story build­ing with­out a lad­der, or har­vest­ing cof­fee with­out a con­tainer to store the beans? This is the sit­u­a­tion that many health care providers find them­selves in when admin­is­ter­ing cer­vi­cal can­cer screen­ing in remote and rural areas. Health care providers often travel long dis­tances to pro­vide life-saving cer­vi­cal can­cer screen­ing and treat­ment to rural areas that do not have health clin­ics or gyne­co­logic exam­i­na­tion tables. Women have to be exam­ined on desks, tables, hard floors or low mat­tresses in com­mu­nity rooms or pri­vate homes. These non-traditional facil­i­ties are often poorly lit and uncom­fort­able for women. In addi­tion, to treat pre-cancerous cer­vi­cal lesions, cryother­apy (freez­ing) of the cervix is employed. This requires providers to lug the gas tanks that weigh approx­i­mately 25 lbs each. These tanks are awk­ward and dif­fi­cult to grasp because of their cylin­dri­cal shape and lack of a han­dle. As a result, providers either roll the gear on a dolly-like struc­ture, or bear the weight on their own
heads – all of which prove unfea­si­ble in remote, moun­tain­ous areas.”

We hope that our small con­tri­bu­tion will help Basic Health International deploy more of these needed tools to vil­lages and women in need. We also urge you to give as well. For more infor­ma­tion on Basic Health International, you can call 212−241−0733 or email them at info@basichealth.org. Their address is:
Basic Health International
Mount Sinai Medical Center
One Gustave, L. Levy Place, Box 1170
New York, NY 10029–6574

Thank you for mak­ing our raf­fle suc­cess­ful!
On behalf of the 5^th graders of the West Seattle Elementary School (a school with hope and heart), we would like to thank the gen­er­ous Coffee Fest exhibitors and our din­ner party guests for their con­tri­bu­tions to our raf­fle fundraiser. Miles and I were amazed at the con­tri­bu­tions of so many friends and busi­ness part­ners, enabling us to suc­cess­fully reach our goal to sus­tain the camp in Islandwood, where the stu­dents par­tic­i­pate in expe­ri­en­tial and project-based field­work. For many of these stu­dents, it is their first time being out­side of the city and they come back changed, with a broader view of them­selves and the impact they have as mem­bers of a com­mu­nity. Keeping the pro­gram alive would not have been pos­si­ble with­out your support!

Coffee Fest Seattle 2012 Highlights

Coffee Fest has now com­pleted pro­duc­tion of the 66^th Coffee Fest trade show, the 21^st held in the emer­ald city. Although Coffee Fest is well estab­lished with more than 20 years under its belt, it remains a top pri­or­ity and pri­mary objec­tive to keep the pro­gram­ming extremely fresh and inno­v­a­tive. Coffee Fest Seattle 2012 debuted two pro­fes­sional com­pe­ti­tions; America’s Best Espresso Competition and the DaVinci Gourmet, America’s Best Coffeehouse Competition. Additionally, Coffee Fest Seattle fea­tured the launch of Coffee Fest’s new Freshman Class; First Time Attendee Orientation Program, which had more than 200, pre­reg­is­tered. The New Product Showcase received a face-lift and the edu­ca­tional pro­gram included 19 brand new classes.

Attendees from all over the U.S. and the world came to the Washington State Convention Center to par­take in the edu­ca­tional offer­ings, the net­work­ing events, the Latte Art World Championship Open com­pe­ti­tion and sam­pled from over 250 exhi­bi­tion booths. Once totaled, actual atten­dance was just over 4,300.

The Coffee Fest Product Showcase has received an online facelift and atten­dees now deter­mine the Best New Product win­ners. Voting occurred online at www.coffeefest.com and the results were announced on Friday after­noon with awards pre­sented to these manufacturers:

CONSUMABLE PRODUCTS

1^st – GoodDrinks – High Fructose Corn Syrup Free Sauces

2^nd – Jet – Jet Arctic Lemonade

3^rd – Earnest Eats – Hot & Fit Cereal

NON-CONSUMABLE PRODUCTS

1^st – JavaHook – JavaHook

2^nd – Hot Straw – Hot Straw

3^rd – Blendtec – Stealth Countertop Blender

Coffee Fest’s Latte Art World Championship Open fea­tured 64 baris­tas in a head-to-head, bracket style, free pour latte art show­down. The 2012 World Championship Open had an Olympic feel with an astound­ing 27 com­peti­tors who trav­eled from Japan, China, and Australia, Malaysia, and Canada to com­pete in Seattle. The com­pe­ti­tion also fea­tured defend­ing cham­pion, Christopher “Nicely” Alameda and San Diego 2011 cham­pion Satoru Oiso. After 3 days of intense com­pe­ti­tion, the cham­pi­ons were named:

1^st place – Winning $2,500 and a 1^st place Trophy – Kei Hamada from Shibuya, Japan

2^nd place – Winning $1,000 and a2nd place Trophy – Shimoyama Nobumasa from Melbourne, Austrailia

3^rd place - Winning $500 and a 3^rd place Trophy – Cole McBride of Visions Espresso -  Seattle, WA

The NEW America’s Best Espresso Competition pre­sented for cof­fee roast­ers is also a head-to-head, bracket style com­pe­ti­tion in which cof­fee roast­ers from the west­ern region of the U.S. and Canada show­cased their espresso. A panel of chefs and restau­ra­teur judges eval­u­ated one shot from each com­peti­tor based on the virtues of 1) Flavor Complexity, 2) Mouthfeel & Appeal, and 3) Aftertaste. Once the 192 shots were extracted, con­sumed, and eval­u­ated the win­ners were:

1^st place – Winning a first place Trophy – Blue Star Coffee Roasters of Twisp, WA

2^nd place – Winning a sec­ond place Trophy – Conduit Coffee Company of Seattle, WA

3^rd place – Winning a third place Trophy – Bowen Island Roasting Co. Ltd of Bowen Island, BC, Canada

Finally, the NEW DaVinci Gourmet, America’s Best Coffeehouse Competition cul­mi­nated at Coffee Fest Seattle. After under­go­ing a 60 day process of elim­i­na­tion by secret shop­per eval­u­a­tion and pub­lic vote, eight semi­fi­nal­ist cof­fee­houses from the west­ern U.S. were cho­sen to com­pete in an on-site pop-up cof­fee­house. Each cof­fee­house brought a team of three to per­form for thirty care­fully selected and pre­pared judges. The emerg­ing vic­tors were:

1^st place – Winning $2500 and a fist place Trophy – Klatch Coffee, Inc. from San Dimas, CA

2^nd place – Winning $1000 and a sec­ond place Trophy – Heart Coffee Roasters from Portland, OR

3^rd place – Winning $500 and a third place Trophy – Dog River Coffee Company from Hood River, OR

All three pro­fes­sional com­pe­ti­tions will con­tinue at every Coffee Fest start­ing in New York March 8–10, 2013. New York will serve as the U.S. and Canada Eastern Regional Championship. Coffee Fest’s Latte Art World Championship Open will remain open to com­peti­tors both domes­ti­cally and inter­na­tion­ally. To apply for any of our upcom­ing com­pe­ti­tions or for more details, visit the www.coffeefest.com.

Coffee Fest is a trade show cater­ing to the spe­cialty cof­fee and gourmet tea indus­tries. For more about their shows or on the win­ners of the com­pe­ti­tions present and future, visit www.coffeefest.com or become a fan at www.facebook.com/coffeefest. Coffee Fest’s next show is slated for New York, NY March 8 – 10, 2013 at the Jacob Javits Center. In June, Coffee Fest returns to Chicago, June 7–9, 2013.

Transportable Gynecological Bed

Contact Name: Lauren Ditzian/Dr. Miriam Cremer

Website: www.basichealth.org
Location: Latin America, Caribbean
Email Address: lditzian@basichealth.org
Phone Number: 212−241−0733

Project Description

Imagine paint­ing a 5-story build­ing with­out a lad­der, or har­vest­ing cof­fee with­out a con­tainer to store the beans? This is the sit­u­a­tion that many health care providers find them­selves in when admin­is­ter­ing cer­vi­cal can­cer screen­ing in remote and rural areas. Health care providers often travel long dis­tances to pro­vide life-saving cer­vi­cal can­cer screen­ing and treat­ment to rural areas that do not have health clin­ics or gyne­co­logic exam­i­na­tion tables. Women have to be exam­ined on desks, tables, hard floors or low mat­tresses in com­mu­nity rooms or pri­vate homes. These non-traditional facil­i­ties are often poorly lit and uncom­fort­able for women. In addi­tion, to treat pre-cancerous cer­vi­cal lesions, cryother­apy (freez­ing) of the cervix is employed. This requires providers to lug the gas tanks that weigh approx­i­mately 25 lbs each. These tanks are awk­ward and dif­fi­cult to grasp because of their cylin­dri­cal shape and lack of a han­dle. As a result, providers either roll the gear on a dolly-like struc­ture, or bear the weight on their own heads–all of which prove unfea­si­ble in remote, moun­tain­ous areas.

Basic Health International (BHI) is a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion with a mis­sion to erad­i­cate cer­vi­cal can­cer in Latin America and the Caribbean. BHI has part­nered with stu­dents at Hampshire College in Massachusetts to solve these prob­lems. Hampshire stu­dents devel­oped a trans­portable, light-weight gyne­co­log­i­cal exam table made from inex­pen­sive mate­ri­als. The design offers a wash­able sur­face and frame which can be worn as a back­pack. The table is out­fit­ted with sev­eral car­ry­ing pouches for sup­plies includ­ing the heavy gas tank nec­es­sary for treat­ment. It also has adjustable stir­rups to account for the vari­abil­ity in women’s height. In March of 2012, the exam table was tested in mul­ti­ple Salvadoran com­mu­ni­ties and was found to be highly accept­able to health providers. Its porta­bil­ity and ease of use made it pos­si­ble to per­form effec­tive cer­vi­cal can­cer screen­ings in non-traditional set­tings. To date, the table has been tested with more than 80 women, all of whom indi­cated that it was com­fort­able. Our goal is to man­u­fac­ture this prod­uct so that it is afford­able and able to be widely dis­trib­uted to com­mu­ni­ties with the great­est need. Please help us equip health­care providers with the tools they need by sup­port­ing this project.

Who Benefits From This Project?

Many women in El Salvador are screened for cer­vi­cal can­cer in darkly lit bed­rooms of their neighbor’s hut, some­times on bloody sheets, beds too-low to the ground, or on top of two school desks pushed together in a class­room lack­ing elec­tric­ity. With the portable gyne­co­log­i­cal bed, the prob­lems asso­ci­ated with a lack of an appro­pri­ate exam bed are alle­vi­ated. The portable beds will pro­vide a com­fort­able, safe and san­i­tary exam­i­na­tion bed for women who undergo a gyne­co­log­i­cal exam­i­na­tion in rural loca­tions, and increase the porta­bil­ity of bed and treat­ment. By bet­ter inte­grat­ing these two com­po­nents we address over­ar­ch­ing issues such as resource scarcity and lack of med­ical infra­struc­ture in rural com­mu­ni­ties not only in our orga­ni­za­tion but coun­tries all over the devel­op­ing world.

How Can I Help?

To make a dona­tion online, please visit the link below. You can also set up a monthly recur­ring dona­tion, which can be can­celled at any time. https://www.justgive.org/nonprofits/donate.jsp?ein=20–3408717

Donations can also be mailed to:
Basic Health International
Mount Sinai Medical Center
One Gustave, L. Levy Place, Box 1170
New York, NY 10029–6574

You can also make dona­tions in honor of a friend or loved one.
Basic Health is a 501©(3) tax-exempt orga­ni­za­tion. All Donations are Tax Deductible. Basic Health tax ID: 20–3408717

If you have any ques­tions, please do not hes­i­tate to call 212−241−0733 or email us at info@basichealth.org.

We thank you for your gen­eros­ity in sup­port­ing our chal­lenge for sav­ing the lives of can­cer patients today

Retailer Profile: San Diego’s Best Coffee in the Virtuoso Lab

It is time to go down to California for that per­fect cup of cof­fee and have a nice chat with another suc­cess­ful roaster-retailer. Give it up to Stephen Vonkolkow, the happy owner of Café Virtuoso, a cen­trally located San Diego café and roasterie.

V.     Stephen, how would you com­pare the cof­fee scene in San Diego to the big boys’ (Seattle, New York and others)?

V.     There has been a real trend over here in the last 10 years in every direc­tion. It used to be a con­ser­v­a­tive, sleepy, lit­tle mil­i­tary town, but now it’s much more progressive.

As far as the cof­fee goes, that is my per­sonal opin­ion, but the wave is just start­ing to build, and we are still catch­ing up to the other big cities. That actu­ally was one of the things that really spurred me to get into this busi­ness – an “A” game needed to be brought into town.

There are an increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple in San Diego who value good qual­ity cof­fee and are will­ing to go our way for it. These are real cof­fee fanat­ics who find us and say, “Wow! Some good cof­fee in here.” It is a great time to be around in my opinion.

V.      How has the busi­ness being going?

V.     We are grow­ing very steadily. We started this busi­ness about a year before the reces­sion hit, but we had grown dur­ing the worst eco­nomic times, and last year we have more than tripled in size in terms of the vol­ume going out of the door, num­ber of cus­tomers, and vol­ume sales.

V.      As the owner, how would you describe the café and the customers?

V.      I have recently received a com­ment from a barista that came from Portland. He said that we looked almost like a lab. Our café is really built around a roas­t­erie. It’s geared towards being able to let peo­ple sam­ple cof­fees quickly.

We have sin­gle serve in addi­tion to brew, and we do the espresso thing really well. But all of that is built so that peo­ple can sam­ple the cof­fee that we have because remem­ber, we are mostly whole­sale.
The café is start­ing to become known as a hip trendy place. This par­tic­u­lar neigh­bor­hood is a lit­tle indus­trial, a bit edgy, but there are also some art schools, so there are many “cre­atives,” who uti­lize our space and do a lit­tle bit of blog­ging about us as well.

V.      I have noticed an inter­est­ing trend that the major­ity of roasters-retailers are fol­low­ing. They choose to move their roas­t­er­ies to a sep­a­rate loca­tion after a while, for rea­sons such as noise and dis­trac­tion from the retail aspect. Are you plan­ning on going in a sim­i­lar direction?

V.     No, I don’t think so. We enjoy our all-in-one open set­ting, and we feel like this is an essen­tial part of our ambiance. It can be noisy in here when we are in full pro­duc­tion, but our cus­tomers seem to enjoy it. It’s wide open, and we are tak­ing our cus­tomers on a mini tour on a reg­u­lar basis, show­ing them how our cof­fee is roasted. Most of them are really intrigued by it.

V.      What kind of roaster do you use?

V.      We use a 12 kilo Diedrich. That is strongly my pref­er­ence. I use it a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent – some­thing I won’t be able to expand on for the sake of keep­ing the company’s secrets safe – but I found it to be the most con­sis­tent roaster in our mar­ket that is capa­ble of mak­ing the best cof­fee out there.

It is also extremely energy effi­cient. And the after­burner that we bought for it uses one-third less gas and puts out one-third less of CO2 emis­sions com­pared to the ther­mal after­burner that you would nor­mally use. Ours costs twice as much, but it pays out in gas sav­ings. Plus, I know that I’m putting out a lot less CO2.

V.      How do you source your coffee?

V.     Well, we have about twenty dif­fer­ent vari­eties, and it’s too dif­fi­cult to have a direct source and a large selec­tion at the same time, so I do use importers. Our cof­fees are 100% organic, and we are Fair Trade certified.

V.      I have noticed that you use Facebook and Twitter accounts for your busi­ness. Are there any other mar­ket­ing tools that you use for promotion?

V.      Absolutely, we also have a lot of cus­tomers com­ing from Yelp. I would say that there is not a day when three to four cus­tomers come by and say that they found us on Yelp.

However, there is another impor­tant thing that we do to pro­mote our­selves. We have started our busi­ness through the farm­ers’ mar­kets to develop our prod­ucts and to get our brand out, and we have actu­ally held on to one of them. The biggest farm­ers’ mar­ket here in San Diego is in Little Italy on Saturday. It’s a huge event, over five blocks, and we have stayed in that because we get a lot from it. We receive enor­mous amount of feed­back from the cus­tomers, and also reserve many whole­sale accounts because chefs work through this mar­ket to find ven­dors. In any given mar­ket we brew up eight to ten dif­fer­ent cof­fees, keep them turned over, and do sam­pling, sell cups, talk to cus­tomers. We also sell quite a bit of retail bags there as well. It is an amaz­ing mar­ket that every­one should visit when in San Diego. Look for a big line, and you will find us.

V.      What do you think makes you successful?

V.      The num­ber one fac­tor is our top to bot­tom empha­sis on qual­ity: all the way from the beans that we buy to the roaster that we use. We pay atten­tion to the details in each stage of our busi­ness. For exam­ple, when we set up our whole­sale accounts and bring in the equip­ment for them, we make sure that their pro­grams are com­pletely dialed in, so that their staff is trained and makes the same cup of cof­fee to the one that they sam­pled in our roasterie.

I also think that every­one on our staff is on the same page; we always try to keep our qual­ity curve up, and it shows and draws for us. I don’t know any cus­tomer that we have lost. Once they find us they become part of the family.

V.      Is there some­thing that you would like to share with the cof­fee world?

V.      We are in a period of great uncer­tainty – cof­fee prices have been ris­ing in the last year – but all of us who are in this indus­try have to stay true to the vision of a con­tin­u­ing effort to increase our qual­ity. We all need to keep push­ing the qual­ity curve up, and this is where the future of the cof­fee is.