The View

Later this week, we are host­ing a tour to the cof­fee grow­ing regions of Costa Rica for about 50 C-level exec­u­tives from the Office Coffee Service sec­tor of the cof­fee world. A trip like this always revi­tal­izes me. It reminds me of how huge, and diverse, and broad, and prof­itable cof­fee is. The OCS folks rep­re­sent approx­i­mately 30% of the total cof­fee sold in the United States. Plus the OCS roast­ers also typ­i­cally sell prod­ucts through mul­ti­ple chan­nels such as com­mer­cial, gro­cery, and even spe­cialty and so rep­re­sent an even larger pro­por­tion of cof­fee sales.

This tour is, for most of these par­tic­i­pants, the first time they will have vis­ited an ori­gin coun­try and expe­ri­enced a spe­cialty cof­fee farm. The OCS oper­a­tors and dis­trib­u­tors have started rec­og­niz­ing that greater atten­tion to qual­ity cof­fee trans­lates to poten­tially higher cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion and higher revenues.

It is easy to lose sight of the vast scope of cof­fee when all you focus on is our day-to-day busi­nesses in the spe­cialty indus­try. But start­ing next month that all changes as we enter into the tradeshow sea­son and par­tic­i­pate at all lev­els in the indus­try. Soon will be Coffee Fest NY, AFCA, the International Restaurant and Foodservice show, and the National Coffee Association with the SCAA and the NAMA One Show fol­low­ing hot on their heels. These shows rep­re­sent the key mar­ket seg­ments that com­prise our indus­try other than gro­cery. (And many in gro­cery will likely be at one of these shows as well.)

Which leads me to won­der what this year will bring? There are sub­stan­tial chal­lenges that face Specialty Coffee not the least of which is a def­i­n­i­tion of what spe­cialty cof­fee is. Many restau­rant and food­ser­vice oper­a­tors see spe­cialty as a cof­fee bev­er­age with addi­tives, such as alco­hol or fla­vor­ings. Many OCS oper­a­tors see spe­cialty as fla­vored cof­fee. Some cafes see spe­cialty cof­fee as a bev­er­age made by a pro­fes­sional barista using tra­di­tional meth­ods. Some believe that only espresso with no addi­tives is spe­cial. Is ice cof­fee spe­cial? Growers see spe­cialty as meet­ing the min­i­mum SCAA cup­ping score of 80 or above. And so on.

The industry’s adher­ence to qual­ity Arabica cof­fees is being chal­lenged by robusta cof­fees and the mixed mes­sages from some is con­fus­ing our con­sumers. As Ric Rhinehart said at the NAMA Coffee, Water, and Tea show, “We’ve shifted away from those cof­fees now,” Rhinehart observed. “Today’s best robus­tas and ‘nat­u­rals’ are bet­ter than they were a quar­ter of a cen­tury ago, but they’re not as good as the bet­ter milds. Let’s not make the same mis­take again. People want to love cof­fee; let’s not dis­cour­age them. “ (Vending Times; December 2012) while at the same time the SCAA and CQI are mov­ing rapidly to bring robusta into the spe­cialty tent.

I won­der if the appa­ra­tus of spe­cialty cof­fee is poised to col­lapse under its own weight? There are the begin­nings of rum­blings that barista jams, cool events, elab­o­rate inter­na­tional jun­kets, and self-congratulatory prepa­ra­tion meth­ods have not put a sin­gle extra dime of profit into the rank and file indie cafes’ cash drawer.

Then there is the prob­lem of being top-heavy in tal­ent. As Nick Cho wrote in a recent blog, “What are we going to do with all these twenty-somethings who we have con­vinced that being a barista is a real­is­tic long-term career path­way? We have flat growth in cof­fee retail­ing and very lim­ited oppor­tu­nity beyond barista. All these golden promises we have made to aspir­ing cof­fee pro­fes­sion­als are likely empty. There sim­ply is no room in the retail side to absorb all this trained talent.”

According to Ric Rhinehart, the spe­cialty cof­fee mar­ket in the US has reached matu­rity with antic­i­pated growth of only 1 to 2% annu­ally. The major­ity of growth will be in cof­fee pro­duc­ing coun­tries. (Maybe aspir­ing roast­ers and baris­tas would be bet­ter served learn­ing Portuguese and Spanish along with pulling the most per­fect shot?)

I won­der if we have sim­ply lost sight of why you should open a busi­ness in the first place – busi­ness own­er­ship is an invest­ment strat­egy pure and sim­ple. If you are not in it to recover your invest­ment and make a tidy sum extra for you and your loved ones, then you should just put your money into a mutual fund. At least there you are not likely to lose it all overnight.

So this year I hope we can declare “The Year of the Profitable Café.” Without prof­its, all of the other excit­ing ele­ments of Specialty Coffee are just dis­tract­ing wastes of time and money.

The next year should begin to answer some of these ques­tions. The future lies in a refo­cus on prof­its and good busi­ness deci­sions based on local mar­ket real­i­ties. Having the most expen­sive and highly rated equip­ment in the expert hands of a highly trained barista com­peti­tor is mean­ing­less if as a result of bad site selec­tion your café is only gross­ing $135,000 a year. If you decided to open a café to make money, feed your fam­ily, and save for the future instead of just buy­ing a job to have some­thing to do for a few years until you fig­ure out what you really want to do, then this com­ing “Year of the Profitable Café” is for you.

The profit motive is built-in and nat­ural to those other seg­ments – the OCS oper­a­tors and the multi-million pound roast­ers; the medium and large chains and the green importers – it is about time to get it back into the spe­cialty cof­fee industry.

Kerri & Miles

What’s Your Legacy in Coffee Going to Be?

Oné of the early adopters of the idea to view  “Specialty Coffee” as a sep­a­rate seg­ment of the cof­fee indus­try was Ted Lingle. It could be argued that he was one of the most influ­en­tial peo­ple in dri­ving the indus­try for­ward. He has cre­ated a legacy of chang­ing the cof­fee indus­try for the bet­ter. Ted is retir­ing and it seems appro­pri­ate to exam­ine his legacy and how he has influ­enced all of us that still have a few years before our own retirement.

Coffee is rich in his­tory. Since its dis­cov­ery in Africa, it has appealed to us on many lev­els. To some it is just a morn­ing fix, nec­es­sary to start the day. To oth­ers it is a mov­ing expe­ri­ence with roots in exotic lands that cre­ates a link to our own lives. Hundreds of years of cul­ti­va­tion, research and con­sump­tion vari­a­tions make it an impor­tant part of almost every culture.

Specialty cof­fee is new. It has been just a few decades since Erna Knutsen coined the term ‘Specialty Coffee’ and a small group of folks started to change our focus on the prod­uct. They told us that cof­fee does not have to be just a con­sump­tion prod­uct. It can also be a qual­ity prod­uct. In just a few short years, an indus­try was born and we oper­ate in that world now. It is an indus­try view that has a firm belief that if you improve the qual­ity of a prod­uct there will be a mar­ket pre­pared to pay more for it. If the mar­ket pays more, then the entire sup­ply chain will benefit.

Ted’s path to qual­ity cof­fee started in the fam­ily busi­ness. Lingle Brothers, started by his grand­fa­ther in 1920, saw Ted work­ing in it for 20 years. His promi­nence in the indus­try car­ried him to senior lev­els of indus­try orga­ni­za­tions. This made him a nat­ural choice to be the found­ing co-chair of the SCAA. In his role at SCAA, he drove tech­ni­cal research to help quan­tify and iden­tify qual­ity in cof­fee. He wrote ‘The Coffee Cuppers Handbook’ and fol­lowed it with ‘The Coffee Brewing Handbook’. He drove inno­va­tions in eval­u­a­tion sci­ence all in pur­suit of enhanc­ing the sup­ply chain from grower to roaster to retailer.

The body of research required addi­tion resources to move for­ward includ­ing staff, vol­un­teers and grant money. Coffee Quality Institute was formed under his watch as Executive Director at SCAA. Ted would later leave his post at SCAA to become the Executive Director of CQI. Many that know Ted thought this was a ter­rific move for him as he truly enjoys the nuts and bolts of cof­fee sci­ence and he saw a poten­tial to really start chang­ing the cof­fee world.

At CQI Ted cre­ated the Q cof­fee sys­tem whereby well trained and cal­i­brated cup­pers could accu­rately iden­tify, and quan­tify, the attrib­utes of cof­fee. By train­ing cup­pers from farms to retail stores a com­mon lan­guage of qual­ity arose. This less­ened the ambi­gu­ity and frus­tra­tion of dis­cus­sions in the sup­ply chain. A for­mal sys­tem of cal­i­brat­ing cup­pers was devel­oped. A per­son could be taught this sys­tem and if they passed a series of 22 tests became a cer­ti­fied Q-Grader.

The set of ser­vices offered by CQI were all designed to increase qual­ity in the sup­ply chain and be able to quan­tify that improve­ment objec­tively. Over and over it has been proven now that qual­ity improves sales prices for each mem­ber of the sup­ply chain. Much of the improve­ments were taught by CQI and ver­i­fied by Q-Graders in the cup. The num­ber of Q-Graders in the mar­ket now num­bers over 2000!

R-Grader
The Q-program was so suc­cess­ful that it is being given a makeover for Robusta cof­fee. Sales of Robusta tend to be a bulk blend of cof­fee where qual­ity is more of an acci­dent than on pur­pose. Some farm­ers how­ever choose to patio dry their cof­fee and hold them as small lots. Some of this cof­fee is quite won­der­ful and deserves more study. It has already been proven at spe­cialty cof­fee auc­tions that qual­ity in Robusta gar­ners a super-premium. Ted has been putting a ton of energy into this and it will keep him busy in his retire­ment con­tin­u­ing to improve this new offering.

Q 4.0
The lat­est step to improve the Q pro­gram at CQI is by cre­at­ing ver­sion 4.0 of the course. This is another project that has Ted work­ing in his retire­ment to fin­ish the remain­ing details. It is a vastly improved rewrite of the Q-Grader cer­ti­fi­ca­tion class in that it focuses on teach­ing stu­dents crit­i­cal con­trol points of qual­ity and how to improve them. This ver­sion should be out in April before the SCAA Conference in Boston. It really pushes the train­ing to the next level by uti­liz­ing best prac­tices cre­ated by Q-Instructors in the field. The train­ing mod­ules are get­ting more sophis­ti­cated and the tests are being revamped to bet­ter reflect the skills needed in the marketplace.

His Legacy
Ted was asked, “When you look back at your career in cof­fee, is there one thing that stands out as being the thing you were most proud of?” His answer was, “I think it would have to be the cre­ation of the cof­fee fla­vor wheel.” He explained that the body of work that went into that poster that most of us have hang­ing in our busi­nesses some­where set the devel­op­ment stage for a great deal of the Q-Grader pro­gram. It ana­lyzes tastes, aro­mas, and defects and puts them into cat­e­gories that help dis­cover their ori­gins. It is even color coded to show how aro­mas, tastes, and defects inter­sect each other and gives names to them. Many peo­ple have seen it but few have any abil­ity to artic­u­late its sig­nif­i­cance. It is good to see that SCAA is cre­at­ing a class spe­cific to the wheel so us mere cof­fee mor­tals can under­stand its com­plex­ity. When you are done with this arti­cle, go look at that poster on the wall and see if you can find deeper mean­ing. (Then go take the class!)

Ted will be remem­bered for a vast num­ber of con­tri­bu­tions to the indus­try includ­ing some he is still work­ing on com­plet­ing. He has left a mark on the world and has indeed changed the lives of those in the cof­fee indus­try for the better.

Your Legacy
So, what are you going to do today, this year, and the rest of your career until you retire to improve the cof­fee world? Like Ted, you should not be doing it to become famous, but by fol­low­ing your pas­sion you may become infa­mous. Strive today to become a great cof­fee cit­i­zen and make your mark.

Ted, we raise our glass to you! We owe you a full con­tainer load of 90+ grat­i­tude. May you have great cof­fee wher­ever retire­ment leads you! Cheers!

Rocky can be reached at rocky@INTLcoffeeConsulting.com

2012 Editor’s Prologue

First a lit­tle house­keep­ing, the arti­cles in this issue are the ideas and opin­ions of the writ­ers and do no NECESSARILY rep­re­sent the opin­ions of CoffeeTalk and the Daily Dose or its employee – includ­ing me! I would have thought that this was pretty obvi­ous but appar­ently not. Maybe we all have become so jaded to the way news is pre­sented and manip­u­lated that the idea that we might print an opin­ion from some­one that dis­agrees with our own edi­to­r­ial view just doesn’t seem pos­si­ble to some. We at CoffeeTalk take the idea of fair and bal­anced seri­ously and so we print oppos­ing ideas to our own – weird, huh?

There, that is out of the way!

Editor’s Prologue

December 21, 2012

As 2012 draws to a close, I would like to just say that I for one am extremely grate­ful that a giant fire­ball thrown off by the sun did not cre­mate the entire earth. I see that as a huge pos­i­tive – just saying.

During this past year, sev­eral fes­ter­ing issues have finally bro­ken through into the lime­light. The fore­most of these are, in my opin­ion and in no spe­cial order…

• The accep­tance of the real­ity of Climate Change
• Emerging Latin con­sumer power in the US mar­ket
• Market accep­tance of the OMG fac­tor regard­ing the health ben­e­fits of coffee

Others of course will have their own lists, but these are my favorites. During this com­ing year, I see these items expand­ing and redefin­ing our approach to so many fac­tors of the cof­fee busi­ness includ­ing; sup­ply, mar­ket­ing, fla­vor pro­files, new prod­uct devel­op­ment, store design, and other essen­tial busi­ness elements.

Climate change has been one of those sub­jects that have lin­gered in the issue bag for years. I know that we at CoffeeTalk have been shout­ing about it for well over seven years. Finally, the impact on cof­fee and the sup­ply chain has become so obvi­ous that even those who think that the idea of cli­mate change being dan­ger­ous to our well being is so much bologna have come to believe that there is some­thing going on. I think that the accu­mu­la­tion of dev­as­tat­ing nat­ural weather dis­as­ters cou­pled with crop fail­ures in Colombia, Central America, and Africa as well as drought and polit­i­cal insta­bil­ity caused by food inequity, finally woke deci­sion mak­ers up. Unfortunately in the sci­en­tific cof­fee com­mu­nity, the gen­eral opin­ion is that it is too late to fix the cli­mate and instead we must hurry to mit­i­gate the dis­as­trous effects of cli­mate change.

At ASIC (Association for Science and Information on Coffee) this year, Climate Change and Sustainability were the pri­mary sub­ject lines through­out the entire con­fer­ence. The wide con­sen­sus was that talk of avoid­ance is long past; the industry’s only choice now is to respond to the effects. Wide pest and dis­ease infes­ta­tion, drought or, equally bad, exces­sive mois­ture, nature’s impact on infra­struc­ture, tem­per­a­ture changes, loss of opti­mum farm­lands and other impacts can no longer be halted by behav­ioral and indus­trial changes, we can only mit­i­gate the effects.

Emerging Latin Consumer power in the US mar­ket. If there is one take-away from the recent elec­tions in the US, it is that the power is no longer held exclu­sively by old white males. The same is true for con­sumerism. Rapidly expand­ing mid­dle class pop­u­la­tions that have not been tra­di­tional con­sumers of spe­cialty cof­fee are rapidly emerg­ing as impor­tant demo­graphic lead­ers – key to this is the Latin Community. How can we as an indus­try con­tinue to ignore Latin con­sumers when we know they embrace the spe­cialty cof­fee cul­ture, just look at Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil for exam­ples? Look no fur­ther than the Latin con­sumer in America if you are hop­ing to expand mar­ket share!

Second on the list of major changes this year has to be the extra­or­di­nary story of the emer­gence of cof­fee as a healthy bev­er­age. After spend­ing the bet­ter part of the last cen­tury jus­ti­fy­ing the con­sump­tion of cof­fee as a kind of sin­ful plea­sure, what a sur­prise it is to be able to hon­estly talk about the remark­able pre­ven­ta­tive health ben­e­fits of brewed cof­fee. We are pur­vey­ors of the elixir of life, the cure for can­cer, and the keys to the Land of OZ. Coffee as a healthy alter­na­tive to caf­feinated sodas is so for­eign a con­cept that many in cof­fee are skep­ti­cal of our own facts. Taken in mod­er­a­tion, less than 5 cups per day, cof­fee reduces the risk of Type 2 dia­betes, can­cer of the pan­creas, colon, pros­trate, liver, and other organs, onset and deep­en­ing of Alzheimer’s, onset of Parkinson’s dis­ease, and so many other mal­adies. It is the golden age of cof­fee and health. Hurrah!

In the com­ing year, we expect that nutraceu­ti­cal prod­ucts derived from green cof­fee will flood the mar­ket with expan­sion into beauty prod­ucts, nutri­tion sup­ple­ments, and pre­ven­ta­tive medicines.

These are just some of our takes on the past, and the com­ing year. In this issue, you will read the ideas and thoughts of over 35 other con­trib­u­tors from a wide rep­re­sen­ta­tion of our indus­try. These rep­re­sent some of the most impor­tant lead­ers of both pri­vate and non-profit orga­ni­za­tions weigh­ing in on the impor­tant issues of our busi­ness. We hope that you enjoy this year’s port­fo­lio of writ­ers and they pro­voke thoughts about your own busi­ness and your role in our wider global community.

Thank you for your ongo­ing loy­alty, con­stant read­ers, and we look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to bring you closer to the issues that mat­ter to you most dur­ing the com­ing year. And thank you to our writ­ers and con­trib­u­tors who braved the pos­si­bil­ity of the destruc­tion of the world and still made our dead­lines to bring you these stories.

& Fertilizer.">The Natural State of Coffee — A Contemplation of Grounds, Leaves & Fertilizer.

I’m get­ting older. I paid $1.25 for a “nickel” Hershey Bar the other day. Things change. On the other hand, the $4.50 latte appears to be here to stay. Even in these hard times con­sumers, par­tic­u­larly the young, have deter­mined that they are will­ing to reach into their pock­ets for a bev­er­age that brings them joy. That too, is a har­bin­ger of good things to come for the roast­ing retailer and inde­pen­dent roaster, for our future is cheek-by-jowl linked to the con­sumers’ inter­est in the goods we make and sell. The econ­omy is still rough, and I keep find­ing myself remem­ber­ing my Dad talk­ing about the cof­fee busi­ness dur­ing the Great Depression when cof­fee sold for 25¢ a pound; 5¢ cup. The plain old nickel cup from the cor­ner news stand is now a buck. The Old Man would have found that funny.

A 36% decline in green cof­fee prices over the last 12 months has buoyed the spir­its of small inde­pen­dent roast­ers as the cost of raw goods has come back to earth, and accounts payables have come out of the stratos­phere to more man­age­able lev­els. As I write, the Exchange price for March 2013 is hov­er­ing at lev­els that most farm­ers and most roast­ers can accept as liv­able. The free flow of cash from inven­tory per­mits invest­ment in equip­ment, new prod­ucts, adver­tis­ing and per­son­nel that was unthink­able dur­ing the last 2 ½ years. It is a well-met asset thaw that bodes well for the future of the community.

There are new roast­ing busi­nesses in every nook and cranny of the coun­try. Recently an old cof­fee cur­mud­geon of my acquain­tance men­tioned that if you turn over a rock with your shoe there is a decent chance you will find a new roaster beneath it. There are many new entrants for sure, and this is a good and healthy thing. It indi­cates that there are folks who have the faith, nascent abil­ity, ded­i­ca­tion, and strength of pur­pose to make a place for them­selves in cof­fee. Where there is new blood, there is hope for the future of this stuff we love.

More and more tech­nol­ogy is creep­ing into the roast­ery. The roast­ing man is seen more and more often check­ing the progress of his roast on his iPad. Environmental man­age­ment of roast­ing bi-product appears to be taken seri­ously by a grow­ing num­ber of small roast­ers who have felt ambiva­lent in the past about the smoke, ash, and smells that are the byprod­uct of cof­fee roast­ing. This is as much a result of peer pres­sure, and con­sumer inter­ests as it is the result of munic­i­pal codes. It is good busi­ness to run a clean, envi­ron­men­tally sen­si­tive busi­ness, and we are learn­ing that year-by-year, which is a good thing.

Espresso is an every­day thing in most parts of the USA now, and it is a rare roaster that does not blend and roast at least one item for espresso use. In an inter­est­ing devel­op­ment Robusta, shunned twenty years ago by any spe­cialty roaster worth his salt, has a grow­ing accep­tance now in Italian style espresso blends. Interestingly, the American style espres­sos are iden­ti­fied with pure Arabica blends. There was some talk a while back about the accep­tance of Robusta beans as spe­cialty cof­fee. That con­ver­sa­tion will con­tinue, and prob­a­bly get louder.

The mar­ket­ing of envi­ron­men­tal sen­si­tiv­ity is seen in the choices many roast­ers are tak­ing in the way they present them­selves to their cus­tomers. Kraft paper and hand-crafted look­ing lam­i­nated valve bags and pack­ing mate­r­ial has grown in use, as it gives the impres­sion of cor­po­rate envi­ron­men­tal sen­si­tiv­ity, small com­pany hand-crafted goods, and down-home neigh­bor­li­ness. Many of these efforts are suc­cess­ful. Sadly, few are more than window-dressing to improve the pub­lic accep­tance of goods offered for sale. Still, aware­ness of the public’s desire to seek out the goods of envi­ron­men­tally sen­si­tive busi­nesses is a big step away from a cal­lus profit-driven inter­est and toward a higher plane of cof­fee consciousness.

The devel­op­ment of green cof­fee extract as an ingre­di­ent in food sup­ple­ments and bev­er­ages will be of con­tin­u­ing inter­est. This phe­nom­e­non of a weight loss ingre­di­ent hit the weight watch­ing scene back in April, when Dr. Oz intro­duced mil­lions of view­ers to it on his tele­vi­sion show. Green cof­fee bean extract, which seems to be pri­mar­ily chloro­genic acid and caf­feine, is now being mar­keted as a dietary sup­ple­ment by many food sup­ple­ment and nat­ural vit­a­min com­pa­nies. So far Starbucks is the only promi­nent roaster to have added cof­fee bean extract to its prod­uct mix. It is an ingre­di­ent in Starbucks’ new Refreshers bev­er­ages and in com­pli­men­tary VIA instant bev­er­age packets.

Roasters will be watch­ing more than their shades this com­ing year. Leaves are much on their minds also since Starbucks, owner of the Tazo tea brand since 1998, has opened a Tazo tea store in Seattle’s University Village shop­ping area. They fol­lowed this con­cept store with the announce­ment that Starbucks will acquire Teavana, Teavana’s 300 small shops spe­cial­ize in tea leafs, tea bev­er­ages, and tea acces­sories. The chain, sprin­kled in mostly mall loca­tions through­out much of the coun­try, expected to make $220–230 mil­lion dol­lars this fis­cal year. Nobody’s bet­ting like Mitt Romney on this, but my nickel is on Teavana out­lets becom­ing Tazo-branded stores before long. Some roast­ers have been offer­ing loose teas for years, while oth­ers offer only tea bags to their whole­sale cus­tomers. It is a fair guess that we are all going to be more inter­ested in teas of every type and descrip­tion in the com­ing year than we have been in the past year.

Among the rare and exotic items that may find its way into North American blends this year is Kopi Luwak, the ster­co­ra­ceous Indonesian cof­fee del­i­cacy that has been imi­tated in Peru and Vietnam after pro­duc­tion was juiced in recent years since being fea­tured in the 2007 film The Bucket List. The Indonesian item has taken a pub­lic rela­tions hit from the UK news­pa­per The Guardian, which reported on alle­ga­tions of ani­mal rights abuses at civet farms in Indonesia. Likewise, the Associated Press has made us aware of Thailand’s Black Ivory cof­fee (cul­ti­vated from ele­phant dung) that hits the fan this year. At $500 a pound, this exotic adds con­sid­er­ably to the avail­able vol­ume of this type of item which may put down­ward pres­sure on the pound price of this class of goods. I have not cupped Black Ivory, but I have pon­dered if it is good to the last dropping.

Author and Roaster’s Guild founder, Donald Schoenholt, is said to have an unerr­ing sense of cof­fee, cof­fee his­tory, and cof­fee continuity—but no sense of humor. He will deny this. He believes he is quite droll. Mr. S., cel­e­brat­ing his 50^th anniver­sary in cof­fee, can be found round the roast­ing room at
www.gilliescoffee.com.

Science and Law: A Toxic Mix

Indus­try chal­lenges con­tin­ued to grow this year under California’s Proposition 65. Eighty cof­fee com­pa­nies have been joined to orig­i­nal defen­dants as two law­suits trudged for­ward.  Many more roast­ers were embroiled indi­rectly as retail­ers demanded assur­ances from suppliers.

Both cases have been mov­ing slowly through the California courts. In the case against retail­ers who serve cof­fee in the cup, the plain­tiff has asked the judge to rule in his favor with­out trial. It’s a com­mon pro­ce­dural move – known as a “motion for a sum­mary judg­ment” – which asserts that there are no fact out­comes that can jus­tify a defense.  Defendants’ coun­sel is oppos­ing the motion with a series of piv­otal fact out­comes that sup­port a suc­cess­ful defense.

In the “roast and ground” case, which tar­gets the 80 new roaster and retailer defen­dants along with the orig­i­nal 30,  the judge has put all pro­ceed­ings on hold – or “stayed  the case.” At the same time, all action in the “cof­fee in the cup” case, aside from the sum­mary judg­ment motion, were also stayed by the judge. With that, all fact-finding inter­views and other pre-trial pro­ceed­ings will not go for­ward at least until the motion is heard on April 5, 2013. The newly named defen­dants, how­ever, must still file respon­sive papers based on the court’s request.

Chasing Zero
While these cases have caused extreme con­cern across the indus­try, they are a symp­tom of a broader, sys­temic chal­lenge.  Science has made it pos­si­ble to detect increas­ingly small con­cen­tra­tions of chem­i­cal com­po­nents in foods, bev­er­ages and other prod­ucts. As researchers and reg­u­la­tory agen­cies “chase zero” with advanced detec­tion meth­ods, an end­less cas­cade of trace sub­stances are com­ing under the microscope.

That’s why sin­gle mol­e­cules of acry­lamide could be dis­cov­ered in cof­fee, potato prod­ucts, cere­als and other foods. Multiple mol­e­cules, chem­i­cally bonded in spe­cific ways, make up poly­acry­lamide, which is an indus­trial com­pound imputed to be carcinogenic.

Public Scrutiny
With increased detec­tion also comes increased atten­tion by gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tors, leg­is­la­tors, food safety groups and con­sumers. As a result, sci­ence is tak­ing on larger sig­nif­i­cance in legal, reg­u­la­tory and pub­lic rela­tions chal­lenges to cof­fee, and is increas­ingly crit­i­cal to the industry’s pro­tec­tion. Including acry­lamide, California’s Proposition 65 lists 1,000 sub­stances the state has deemed to present a risk of can­cer or repro­duc­tive harm. Each has a set con­cen­tra­tion thresh­olds, above which foods and prod­ucts con­tain­ing the sub­stances must carry con­sumer warnings.

And, the chal­lenges will not be lim­ited to California. Already, acry­lamide and a host of other heat-formed sub­stances are on the radar of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Canada and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), among other gov­ern­men­tal enti­ties and research institutions.

Protection
Heightened scrutiny of minute com­po­nents in cof­fee presents a new dimen­sion of chal­lenge for all seg­ments of the indus­try, includ­ing large and small roast­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers, spe­cialty retail­ers, and inde­pen­dent cof­fee shops. Protecting your busi­ness means that you need to fol­low and under­stand unfold­ing sci­en­tific devel­op­ments and their legal and reg­u­la­tory consequences.

At the National Coffee Association, that’s an impor­tant func­tion we pro­vide for the industry’s ben­e­fit. For many years, NCA has been the industry’s eyes, ears and minds when it comes to sci­en­tific devel­op­ments sur­round­ing cof­fee, caf­feine and health. The NCA Scientific Affairs Program is the industry’s only such resource, cov­er­ing the field on all aspects of cof­fee sci­ence, as well as its impli­ca­tions for con­sumers and the indus­try. Among the program’s com­pre­hen­sive func­tions are:
•    Tracking and analy­sis of research on cof­fee and caf­feine
•    Science-based per­spec­tive on food safety leg­is­la­tion and reg­u­la­tion
•    Expertise in food chem­istry, tox­i­col­ogy and epi­demi­ol­ogy, along with impli­ca­tions for phys­i­o­log­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal expo­sure
•    Acknowledged influ­ence in world­wide sci­en­tific cir­cles
•    Active col­lab­o­ra­tion with lead­ing food and envi­ron­men­tal safety organizations.

At the program’s core is a ded­i­cated com­mit­tee of lead­ing indus­try sci­en­tists who hold decades of exper­tise in epi­demi­ol­ogy, tox­i­col­ogy, bio­chem­istry, med­i­cine, food safety and qual­ity assur­ance. In fact, the com­mit­tee is one of just a hand­ful of inter­na­tion­ally respected groups devoted to the study of cof­fee sci­ence around the world.

Through the com­mit­tee and other research chan­nels, NCA has con­tin­ued to track, flag and ana­lyze every study done on cof­fee, caf­feine and health world­wide through­out the year. At the same time, NCA has also iden­ti­fied and scru­ti­nized the reg­u­la­tory and legal con­structs based on sci­ence that could turn research find­ings into legal proceedings.

Going Forward
Every day, sci­ence is becom­ing more gran­u­lar, and gov­ern­ment and con­sumer atten­tion more intense. Over time, the threats to cof­fee are only likely to grow in scope and dimen­sion.  It’s a new type of chal­lenge, a hybrid of sorts, which arises at the inter­sec­tion of sci­ence and law. It har­bors mul­ti­ple poten­tial threats, each of which needs to be addressed quickly and aggressively.

All eyes are now on California, as the indus­try fights the most vis­i­ble exam­ple to date. Inevitably, though, the issues will tran­scend place and time and pose new threats to cof­fee com­pa­nies of all types and sizes. Going for­ward, sur­mount­ing this hybrid new chal­lenge will take indus­try aware­ness, indi­vid­ual atten­tion and, most of all, pro­fes­sional exper­tise devoted to under­stand­ing the sci­ence behind the law.

Robert F. Nelson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Coffee Association of U.S.A. He also serves as chair­per­son of the Private Sector Consultative Board of the International Coffee Organization, where he is mem­ber of the offi­cial U.S. del­e­ga­tion. Nelson sits on Harvard University’s Institute of Politics Global Food Policy Advisory Board and is a grad­u­ate of the Harvard Business School Executive Seminar on Agribusiness. He is the recip­i­ent of the Colombian Manuel Mejia Medal of Merit.

Quality and Supply Driven Markets — The Future of Washed Arabica Coffee

Coffee in gen­eral and spe­cialty cof­fee in par­tic­u­lar, is a cycli­cal busi­ness. From the nat­ural rhythms of plant­ing, prun­ing and har­vest­ing to the start up, growth and con­sol­i­da­tion of roast­ers and retail­ers, this cycli­cal nature plays out over and over again, and those of us get­ting longer in the tooth rec­og­nize and accept these cycles as a part of the business.

The year we saw what would appear to be some reaf­fir­ma­tions of this cycli­cal nature of the cof­fee busi­ness. In par­tic­u­lar, after two years of tight sup­ply and ele­vated prices, we saw cof­fee stocks increase and prices begin to sub­side. This is typ­i­cal of cof­fees his­tory, with high prices dri­ven by tight sup­ply spurring more inten­sive hus­bandry, new plant­i­ngs and ren­o­va­tion of exist­ing farms. The result­ing increase in sup­ply dri­ves price down, and if the cycle con­tin­ues over time the mar­ket pushes to new bot­toms before the cycle con­tin­ues and hus­bandry declines, new plant­i­ngs cease, and the sup­ply and demand equa­tion slowly turns push­ing prices higher again. There is noth­ing new under the sun here, and it is very tempt­ing to accept this as the nature of the business.

On closer inspec­tion, there is some­thing fun­da­men­tally dif­fer­ent in the cur­rent cycle. This time, while over­all sup­ply of cof­fee has increased some­what, the real story is not the down­ward price pres­sure of increased sup­ply of cof­fee to the mar­ket. The story of real inter­est is tied up in the kinds of cof­fees being pro­duced, exported and roasted in the marketplace.

Total pro­duc­tion of cof­fee in the 2011/12 crop year was nearly 135 mil­lion bags of cof­fee to sat­isfy a demand of roughly 140 mil­lion bags world­wide. Closer exam­i­na­tion reveals two down­ward dri­vers on price. First, is a 2012/13 crop pre­dic­tion for upwards of 146 mil­lion bags, pro­duc­ing the first sub­stan­tial sur­plus in sup­ply since 2006. The sec­ond is the change in the mix of both sup­ply and demand by cof­fee type. In the 2011/12 crop year robusta pro­duc­tion accounted for over 53 mil­lion bags, or 40% of the world total. Brazil and other nat­ural ara­bi­cas accounted for another 41 mil­lion bags Colombian and other milds just 40 mil­lion bags. The result­ing mix on the world mar­ket is less than 30% washed Arabica and over 70% nat­u­rals and robus­tas. The over­all result was sig­nif­i­cant down­turn in both the ICO indi­ca­tor price and the bench­mark New York ‘C’ price. In spite of a dimin­ished pro­duc­tion of the under­ly­ing prod­uct, washed Arabica cof­fee, fore­cast for the com­ing crop year, prices remain low as roast­ers turned to ever increas­ing com­mit­ments to cof­fees other than washed Arabica.

Much of this change in the mix can be ascribed to increas­ing con­sump­tion in tra­di­tional pro­duc­ing coun­tries, where price sen­si­tiv­ity and entry level con­sump­tion pat­terns push greater con­sump­tion of lower priced and/or qual­i­ties. Some small mea­sure is also attrib­ut­able to mature mar­kets, par­tic­u­larly in Europe, demon­strat­ing a will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice qual­ity for price and push­ing con­sumer expec­ta­tions down­wards. This is another cycle in itself, where decreas­ing qual­ity drags down con­sump­tion, a sce­nario played out in the US in the not dis­tant past. This con­flu­ence of decreas­ing prices, changes in pro­duc­tion mix and increas­ing aggre­gate sup­ply cre­ate an unusual, decid­edly non-cyclical sce­nario in which qual­ity is hard to find and pro­duc­ers strug­gle to find a bal­ance between the costs of qual­ity and dis­ap­pear­ing price incentives.

The cycli­cal nature of growth and con­sol­i­da­tion in the retail mar­kets also had some inter­est­ing man­i­fes­ta­tions this year, most notably the acqui­si­tions of Peet’s Coffee and Tea and Caribou Coffee by the Joh. A. Benckiser Group. In the inde­pen­dent spe­cialty world smaller com­pa­nies con­tin­ued to grow, with new cap­i­tal infu­sions, per­haps most notably Blue Bottle Coffee, dri­ving expan­sion in a vari­ety of markets.

The SCAA con­tinue to work to sup­port and inform the spe­cialty cof­fee com­mu­nity, and we will be adding more insights into the sup­ply and demand sce­nario and its impli­ca­tions for spe­cialty cof­fee as the new year begins. We will also be con­tin­u­ing our work from last year in under­stand­ing the consumer’s rela­tion­ship to spe­cialty cof­fee and will have new infor­ma­tion to share on that topic.

Ric Rhinehart is cur­rently serv­ing as the Executive Director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Prior to tak­ing on this posi­tion he was the President of a Los Angeles, California based roaster and retailer. Mr. Rhinehart has over the past twenty years held exec­u­tive posi­tions in sev­eral cof­fee & tea firms.

Feelin’ Groovy

A gen­er­a­tion ago, a small cadre of cof­fee enthu­si­asts in the United States began a jour­ney in search of the world’s finest qual­ity cof­fee.  The objec­tives were more per­sonal than finan­cial. As the qual­ity of cof­fee improved, their num­bers grew. Not only was the spe­cialty cof­fee trade born then, shortly there­after, the course of an entire nation had changed.

Once well known as the most igno­rant cof­fee con­sum­ing nation on the globe, in one gen­er­a­tion the United States raced to the top of the world in terms of cof­fee qual­ity. Organic cof­fee, which had been viewed, first as organic and last, last, last for its qual­ity, soared ahead to run neck and neck with the world’s finest qual­ity cof­fee.  Fair trade cof­fee used to be sold by those often referred to as rad­i­cal, rabble-rousing com­mu­nists.  Today, fair trade cof­fee is sold by Smucker’s, the same cor­po­ra­tion that owns Folgers.  Yet, even more impres­sive than uplift­ing the cof­fee trade’s broad base faster than a speed­ing bul­let, is how hard the brakes have been slammed on to cre­ate Slow Pour.

In the begin­ning, price was the first vari­able to give way to qual­ity. Given that noth­ing has led the cof­fee world away from its poor qual­ity roots more effec­tively than that small cadre rec­og­niz­ing the value of qual­ity over price, other vari­ables, such as vol­ume and time, may also be vul­ner­a­ble to the quest for qual­ity.  Slow Pour points directly into the pre­vail­ing winds that demand speed and vol­ume, and asks the con­sumer to stop and smell the coffee.

Could there be another cadre of cof­fee enthu­si­asts out there?

While the race to the top has been led by the unre­lent­ing pur­suit of qual­ity in the cup, it has been closely fol­lowed by con­sumer con­cerns for improved social and envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions at ori­gin.  Marketing depart­ments have latched on to these very hot con­sumer con­cerns and answered with wide­spread Cause Related Marketing cam­paigns. Unfortunately, con­sumers have pre­cious lit­tle time in the super­mar­ket aisles or in the café cue, to get a clear pic­ture of the com­plex­i­ties at ori­gin.  So, mar­ket­ing depart­ments have con­sol­i­dated the com­plex issues into sound bites and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion seals. But, sound bites and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion seals sim­ply can­not explain the com­plex­i­ties at ori­gin, and con­sumers are left to their own inter­pre­ta­tion.  Consumers really want to know more. But, clever mar­ket­ing phrases have led them to over­sim­plify, and their inter­pre­ta­tions have fallen well short of reality.

Slow Pour slows down the entire cof­fee expe­ri­ence, and offers con­sumers a pause from the rush and an oppor­tu­nity to con­sider what life is like behind the mys­tery in the cup. The care and atten­tion to each brew may be more than the lat­est step in deliv­er­ing the high­est qual­ity cof­fee to the con­sumer.  It may also be the first step in pro­vid­ing the time and space for con­sumers and servers to acknowl­edge and respect the com­plex­i­ties hid­den behind every cup.  Let alone the time and space to fully enjoy the sen­sory expe­ri­ence, and acknowl­edge, respect and truly be in awe of all those com­plex­i­ties, both behind and within every cup.

Let’s face it. Explaining the sen­sory expe­ri­ence pales in com­par­i­son to the expe­ri­ence.  Nor, is explain­ing sus­tain­abil­ity any eas­ier. Slow Pour offers the spe­cialty cof­fee trade the oppor­tu­nity to invite con­sumers in to the mys­te­ri­ous world within every cup and beyond the sound bites to begin untan­gling the com­plex­i­ties, loos­en­ing them into more man­age­able, under­stand­able pieces. Over a slow, pen­sive cup there is room for a healthy dia­logue, and a free flow of ideas and ques­tions that would oth­er­wise be impos­si­ble in the hus­tle bus­tle of the cof­fee rush.

Customer: “May I have a small cup of that Caracolito Peaberry, from Injerto in Guatemala, please”?  

Barista:  “Sure.  This is an extra­or­di­nary cof­fee from Huehuetenango. It has a del­i­cate body, creamy tex­ture, it’s mildly acidic with cit­rus accents and sweet touches of peach.  It’s a par­tic­u­larly bal­anced cup, clean, silky with good struc­ture. I par­tic­u­larly like brew­ing this cof­fee in a Chemex. It will be ready in a minute.”

Customer:  “Oh, I’m going to like this. Does this cof­fee come from any­where near the earth­quake that stuck Guatemala a short while ago”?

Barista:  “Yes, it does.  The earth­quake wasn’t that far from Huehuetenango and Injerto farms.  It made the news for a few days, but with elec­tions, and the mid east cri­sis it just disappeared.”

Customer:  “Do you know any­thing about what happened?”

Barista:  “It was dev­as­tat­ing.  Homes were lost.  Roads were blocked.  And, what made mat­ters worse, the gov­ern­ment didn’t respond at all in the begin­ning.  So, it was up to local NGOs to pro­vide food, shel­ter, and take care of those who were hurt.”

Customer:  “What’s it like now?”

Barista:  “Well, the gov­ern­ment has finally responded and is pro­vid­ing relief to those who have been hurt the most.  Now, the NGOs are try­ing to rebuild.  Homes, busi­nesses, entire com­mu­ni­ties have been destroyed.  It’s not like the US where FEMA comes in to rebuild and offer fund­ing for eco­nomic relief.  It’s still pretty bad.”

Customer:  “Can I do any­thing to help”?

Barista: “In one sense, you already are. Injerto sup­ports edu­ca­tion, health, and nutri­tion for all its work­ers. So, keep buy­ing their cof­fee. And, here is a list of orga­ni­za­tions sup­port­ing rebuild­ing efforts in the region.  I’m sure they could use what­ever help you could afford. Here’s your cof­fee. I hope you enjoy it.”

Customer: Oh!  This is good!

Next Customer: “May I have a cup of cof­fee from Café Capucas in Western Honduras”?

Barista: “Sure.  Did you know that in Western Honduras,…….”  

No. This is not about get­ting them in and out. Slow Pour offers cof­fee busi­nesses the oppor­tu­nity to share their knowl­edge about issues at ori­gin with cus­tomers who want to know more, and at the same pace of brew­ing each exquis­ite cup.

There will be those who will say, “Do you really expect me to earn a liv­ing sell­ing cof­fee at that pace?” Of course, I remem­ber what it was like when I was start­ing out in spe­cialty cof­fee.  My friends would come in to my store and ask me, “Do you really expect to earn a liv­ing by just sell­ing coffee?”

Slow down, you move too fast, you’ve got to make the morn­ing last
Just kickin’ down the cobble-stones, lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy

Simon and Garfunkel (1966)

By Bill Fishbein, founder of Coffee Kids and The Coffee Trust. Bill is cur­rently work­ing at ori­gin in the Ixil region of Guatemala and in the Western Highlands of Honduras pro­mot­ing com­pre­hen­sive, inte­grated, grass­roots devel­op­ment for small-scale cof­fee farm­ers. www.thecoffeetrust.org

Specialty Robusta — A Revolution or a Tragic Mistake

Earlier this year, the Coffee Quality Institute announced the launch of the R-grading sys­tem. The premise is that there are Robusta cof­fees good enough to be con­sid­ered spe­cialty cof­fee and that a sys­tem of dis­cov­ery and pro­mo­tion is needed to build a sub­stan­tial spe­cialty indus­try around them. The idea of spe­cialty Robustas has polar­ized some parts of the spe­cialty cof­fee indus­try with both strong detrac­tors and adher­ents speak­ing out; it is not a sim­ple issue.

As Robusta cof­fees have a sig­nif­i­cant taste dif­fer­ence from Arabicas, the spe­cialty cof­fee indus­try (at least, in the U.S.) has spent decades demo­niz­ing them. While the indus­try admits that not all Arabica cof­fee is spe­cialty cof­fee, there has been a fairly good agree­ment that Robusta is evil. While there have been some Robusta sup­port­ers, in gen­eral, though, the mes­sage has been clear: it can­not be spe­cialty cof­fee if it is or if it con­tains Robusta.

The idea of spe­cialty Robustas is not new. An Internet and trade mag­a­zine search will turn up arti­cles writ­ten in the last few years dis­cussing the mat­ter. It is only the new R sys­tem, with its active pro­mo­tion of Robusta cof­fees, which has caused some peo­ple to cry foul.

CofeeTalk Magazine has played host to a con­ver­sa­tion about spe­cialty Robustas in the last few months within the edi­to­r­ial sec­tion and let­ters to the edi­tor. Instead of recap­ping those con­ver­sa­tions, this arti­cle will explore some points of those con­ver­sa­tions while bring­ing up some new ones.

Can Robustas taste good enough to be con­sid­ered spe­cialty coffee?

I have long been a pro­po­nent that each indi­vid­ual con­sumer is an arbiter of qual­ity. Far be it for any expert to claim what is uni­ver­sally good or bad for every­body else. In this con­text, there are cer­tainly Robusta cof­fees that will be accept­able and desir­able to some consumers.

Given the cur­rent Q-grading sys­tem and its attempt to define spe­cialty cof­fee, are there spe­cialty Robustas? Nobody knows. A few farm­ers are sell­ing them but the sam­ple size is so small that it is impos­si­ble to make a gen­er­al­ized con­clu­sion. Thus, cof­fee geeks can­not even weigh in on the possibility.

Agronomically, the ques­tion is dif­fi­cult to answer. Arabica cof­fees have long been receiv­ing royal treat­ment and pam­per­ing. In the field, they are bet­ter cared for, bet­ter har­vested, and bet­ter processed than Robustas. Farmers even plant spe­cific vari­eties with taste in mind. Arabicas are given more oppor­tu­ni­ties to attain their poten­tial as spe­cialty cof­fee. Robustas, on the other hand, are almost never treated as well. Thus, we do not know if, given a chance, they could be much bet­ter than they cur­rently are. It is prob­a­ble that there will be a vari­ety, a process, a loca­tion, or a com­bi­na­tion of such things that will pro­duce a spe­cialty Robusta.

Can spe­cialty Robustas help keep costs down?

Most likely, no. The pri­mary rea­son Robusta cof­fees are cheaper is that they are not pro­duced as lov­ingly as Arabicas. Thus, if farm­ers fer­til­ize and water them more, pay pick­ers more for bet­ter har­vest­ing, and spend more money on pro­cess­ing, their cost of pro­duc­tion is likely to rise to com­pa­ra­ble Arabica levels.

In addi­tion, if spe­cialty Robustas do take off, then they’ll need to be sup­ported by sci­en­tific research to dis­cover best prac­tices for spe­cialty pro­duc­tion. That research will need to be funded and there’s lit­tle hope that pro­duc­ers (and con­se­quently con­sumers) won’t have to bear part of that burden.

Will spe­cialty Robustas help increase the amount of avail­able spe­cialty coffee?

While the sim­ple answer is “yes” – more of any spe­cialty cof­fee will add to sup­ply – the hope is a false one since increas­ing the sup­ply of spe­cialty Arabica can be solved just as eas­ily as adding spe­cialty Robusta to the mix. Better farm­ing prac­tices (more nutri­ent and water input along with bet­ter prun­ing, pro­cess­ing, and stor­age) could prob­a­bly increase spe­cialty Arabica yields 2–5 times their cur­rent lev­els!  Yet, this hasn’t been done nor is it widely advo­cated. To sus­pect that appre­cia­ble amounts of spe­cialty Robusta will be pro­duced and dis­cov­ered with­out appre­cia­bly increas­ing their cost while hav­ing sub­stan­tially equiv­a­lent qual­ity to Arabica is unlikely. A new species is not the imme­di­ate solu­tion, bet­ter farm­ing is.

Can Robustas be mar­keted suc­cess­fully after so many years of neg­a­tive publicity?

Convincing spe­cialty cof­fee roast­ers and con­sumers that Robustas are now worth drink­ing is a dif­fi­cult and tricky ven­ture. Poor mar­ket­ing will lead to all Robustas being hijacked and cel­e­brated by the large cof­fee con­glom­er­ates, much as “100% Arabica” has been. Selling a con­sumer on a more expen­sive Robusta will be a huge chal­lenge: you need to quickly and eas­ily teach peo­ple why and how Robustas are now drink­able when yes­ter­day they were not while dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing them from their cheaper coun­ter­parts sold by the con­glom­er­ates and still com­ing across as hav­ing integrity. It is not that it can­not be done, only that it will not be easy.

The estab­lish­ment of the “R-Grading System” might have already jeop­ar­dized the pro­mo­tion of spe­cialty Robustas. The R-Grader System’s very exis­tence says that Robutas are not sub­stan­tially equiv­a­lent to Arabicas. If the Q– Grader System – whose pur­pose is to define spe­cialty cof­fee – can­not grade Robustas, then either they are not spe­cialty or the Q– Grader System is dys­func­tional (a very real pos­si­bil­ity, but one not to be dis­cussed here). The R-Grader System appears to be a smoke– and-mirror trick to con­vince every­one that Robustas are spe­cialty with­out mak­ing them succeed-by-trial in the Q-Grading System.

I can­not pre­dict whether spe­cialty Robustas will be adopted by the spe­cialty cof­fee indus­try as a whole but I think the attempt to get them adopted will be, for­give the pun, robust. Personally, I sup­port the search for them. I cel­e­brate the diver­sity of the cof­fee taste spec­trum and I delight in the dis­cov­ery of new, inter­est­ing cup pro­files. There is no rea­son Robustas have to be equiv­a­lent in any way to Arabicas.

That said, we must be hon­est with our­selves and con­sumers about what we are dis­cov­er­ing and pro­mot­ing, and why. It is ok to change our pref­er­ences and widen our hori­zons. However, we should admit that we are explor­ing some­thing we’ve spent decades decry­ing and rec­og­nize it is going to be a bumpy road we jour­ney upon. Not every­one has to embrace spe­cialty Robustas. Those that do, how­ever, should do so in a way that doesn’t dimin­ish the cred­itabil­ity spe­cialty cof­fee has worked so hard to gain nor in a way that will dam­age some­one else.

Shawn Steiman, PhD, is a cof­fee sci­en­tist and con­sul­tant.  He has authored numer­ous books and arti­cles on a range of cof­fee related top­ics. He spe­cial­izes in cof­fee pro­duc­tion, qual­ity, and edu­ca­tion.  He can be reached at steiman@coffeaconsulting.com.

This mod­i­fied ver­sion is reprinted with per­mis­sion from The Coffee Store (www.mauicoffee.com).

Coffee Partnerships Save Lives

Coffee—the world’s second-most traded com­mod­ity after crude oil—is the source of liveli­hood for mil­lions of peo­ple around the globe through its cul­ti­va­tion, har­vest­ing, pro­cess­ing and trad­ing. Though indus­tri­al­ized nations con­sume the bulk of cof­fee, 90% of it is pro­duced in devel­op­ing coun­tries where females make up the major­ity of the cof­fee labor force. Ripe cof­fee cher­ries are har­vested man­u­ally. According to the International Trade Forum, women do at least 70% of the har­vest­ing and sort­ing. It takes approx­i­mately 3,200 beans to con­sti­tute a sin­gle pound of cof­fee for which the picker can be paid as lit­tle as 14¢, accord­ing to some indus­try figures.

Women play an undis­putable role in the health, vibrancy and sus­tain­abil­ity of cof­fee pro­duc­tion. Yet, these same women are among the last in the world to gain access to basic health screen­ing ser­vices that can keep them healthy and pro­duc­tive mem­bers of their com­mu­ni­ties. For instance, when a woman in a coffee-growing com­mu­nity dies from cer­vi­cal cancer—as nearly 200,000 do each year—it is not only a human tragedy, but also bad for busi­ness. Moreover, the last­ing neg­a­tive impact in terms of edu­ca­tion, health and lost oppor­tu­nity on the next gen­er­a­tion of would-be cof­fee farm­ers is incalculable.

Since 1996, the cof­fee indus­try (most notably the spe­cialty cof­fee indus­try) has been sup­port­ing the work of Grounds for Health to cre­ate sus­tain­able cer­vi­cal can­cer pre­ven­tion pro­grams in coffee-growing com­mu­ni­ties. Cervical can­cer, the num­ber one cause of can­cer death for women through­out the devel­op­ing world, is pre­ventable, treat­able and cur­able. Yet, every two min­utes a woman dies some­where in the world, often because she lacks basic access to rou­tine screening.

To date, Grounds for Health has trained 500 com­mu­nity health pro­mot­ers to edu­cate and recruit women to be screened for cer­vi­cal can­cer. The non-profit has taught 270 doc­tors and nurses how to con­duct a low-cost yet highly effec­tive screen­ing pro­to­col to detect pre-cancer of the cervix and to treat women who test pos­i­tive. This “screen and treat” tech­nique, rec­og­nized by the World Health Organization as a “best buy” in inter­na­tional pub­lic health, can be done even in the most remote set­tings. Through Grounds for Health pro­grams, more than 40,000 women have been screened. These local doc­tors and nurses will con­tinue to pro­vide ser­vices through­out their careers in the com­mu­ni­ties where they work and live, mak­ing the pro­gram truly sus­tain­able. When women need treat­ment, they get it. When they are shown to have advanced can­cer need­ing more aggres­sive treat­ment, they are referred for more care.

Coffee com­pa­nies have rec­og­nized these results and intu­itively under­stand both the human­i­tar­ian and busi­ness incen­tives of safe­guard­ing the health of women as an inte­gral part of the cof­fee value chain. What may be less under­stood is the global impact that sup­port­ing Grounds for Health and other cof­fee non-profits has had and con­tin­ues to have. Grounds for Health’s work, for example—which is only made pos­si­ble by cof­fee support—has been rec­og­nized for its impact on address­ing a major global health prob­lem. The organization’s approach of only going where invited and then incor­po­rat­ing com­mu­nity mobi­liza­tion as a crit­i­cal ele­ment to long-term, local pro­gram sus­tain­abil­ity has gained trac­tion in the inter­na­tional health com­mu­nity. In 2011, the World Health Organization asked Executive Director August Burns to join a seven-person Technical Advisory Group on Cervical Cancer Prevention. This group is lit­er­ally re-writing inter­na­tional guide­lines for reduc­ing the bur­den of this global pub­lic health prob­lem, tak­ing into account the neces­sity of a “ground up” approach. Grounds for Health has also been invited by the Global Health Council, the Pan American Health Organization and the Federation of International Gynecology and Obstetrics (among oth­ers) to present its model as an exam­ple of a public/private part­ner­ship that is mak­ing a mea­sur­able dif­fer­ence. One exam­ple of the effec­tive­ness of the community-centered approach is that the gov­ern­ment of Tanzania has now adapted Grounds for Health train­ing pro­to­cols and mate­ri­als for its national programs.

Coffee com­pa­nies have proven them­selves to be incred­i­bly phil­an­thropic and truly con­cerned with the wel­fare of the peo­ple who pro­duce their prod­uct. When cof­fee com­pa­nies open their check­books to sup­port a vari­ety of coffee-based char­i­ties, they do it for their own altru­is­tic rea­sons. The fact that these gen­er­ous impulses also have pos­i­tive long-term ram­i­fi­ca­tions worldwide—not just in the world of coffee—is a ben­e­fit few could have foreseen.

Jane S. Dale is Development Director for Grounds for Health. Previously, she held the posi­tion of a Vice-President for Cone, Inc. This Boston-based cause-marketing firm helps align the phil­an­thropy of Fortune 500 com­pa­nies with their busi­ness objec­tives through tar­geted finan­cial sup­port of non-profits and social cause.

For 2013, Quality is still the Key

At the Coffee Quality Institute, we have expressed since 1996 that the best sus­tain­abil­ity project is one that improves and rewards qual­ity. It is just as true today as it was then. CQI con­tin­ues to build on over a decade of suc­cess in the pro­mo­tion and edu­ca­tion about qual­ity cof­fee. 2013 will be a record year for lives helped through our efforts.

Improving Quality Improves Lives!
When founded, CQI had a strong focus on the sci­ence of taste for­ma­tion and eval­u­a­tion of cof­fee. It was deter­mined that this sci­ence could be the most use­ful if the entire sup­ply chain spoke the same lan­guage and were cal­i­brated on fla­vor attrib­utes. From this, the Q-Grader Certification was born. Since then, the world has been pop­u­lated with over 2,100 Q-Graders in 59 Countries. The edu­ca­tion com­po­nent con­tin­ues to improve and the value to the stu­dent grows each year. The release of the lat­est ver­sion of the Q-Grader course mate­r­ial in early 2013 will be one of our first great achieve­ments for the year.

What may not be so well known about CQI are the many other areas where we serve the cof­fee sup­ply chain. Technical assis­tance has been given in the areas of pro­duc­tion and pro­cess­ing, qual­ity improve­ment and increased inter­nal con­sump­tion. Many pro­duc­ers are unaware of mar­ket­ing tools, geo­graph­i­cal iden­tity of pro­duc­tion zones and use of cup pro­files. We find that pro­duc­ers are eager to learn about qual­ity improve­ments and mar­ket­ing of spe­cialty cof­fees. CQI has an inti­mate under­stand­ing of cof­fee indus­try needs and has years of expe­ri­ence in the devel­op­ment of effi­cient cof­fee mar­ket link­ages, tech­ni­cal assis­tance, mar­ket devel­op­ment, and capac­ity build­ing in devel­op­ing countries.

A great exam­ple of help­ing to cre­ate a mar­ket for spe­cialty cof­fee was our efforts to help the Specialty Coffee Association of Indonesia bring some of their best cof­fees directly to the spe­cialty roaster with a cof­fee auc­tion. CQI was able to lend exper­tise in grad­ing, select­ing and prepar­ing for the auc­tion as well as pro­vided an auc­tion­eer to help boost the prices. All cof­fees received higher than mar­ket prices by being in the auc­tion! Over seven times mar­ket in some cases!

CQI’s Coffee Corps™ vol­un­teer pro­gram matches coffee-industry experts with farm­ers and asso­ci­a­tions at ori­gin. The Coffee Corps is a group of vol­un­teers pas­sion­ate about cof­fee and will­ing to share their time and tal­ents with cof­fee farm­ers and cof­fee com­mu­ni­ties. These vol­un­teers help grow­ers improve their pro­duc­tion meth­ods and pro­cess­ing, and train labs, roast­ers, pack­agers, exporters, baris­tas and café own­ers about qual­ity con­trol processes and marketing.

A well-received class in 2012 was the ‘Honey and Naturals Processing Class’ in Ethiopia run by CoffeeCorps Volunteers.

The lat­est new pro­gram for CQI is the R-Grader pro­gram. This is sim­i­lar to the Q-Grader pro­gram but focuses on Robusta cof­fee and the farm­ers that pro­duce this mis­un­der­stood crop. It is entirely pos­si­ble that a whole new com­mu­nity will be able to ben­e­fit from the increased edu­ca­tion and qual­ity pro­grams ini­ti­ated by CQI. When you think about it: Quality Improvement is Quality Improvement, and Lives are Lives; there­fore, regard­less of plant species Improved Quality = Improved Lives.

As we look ahead to 2013 we see more con­tracts in place to do good work and pur­sue new research. We see pro­grams grow­ing on their own so we can focus on oth­ers that need more atten­tion. We pre­dict that there will be more lives helped by CQI than any other year in our his­tory! Bring on 2013!

Coffee Corps Volunteer Coördinator, Coffee Quality Institute

Joan is orig­i­nally from Wyoming, grow­ing up in Cheyenne and grad­u­at­ing from the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 1976.  She grew up in the travel agency busi­ness that her dad started in 1949, learn­ing from him after school and dur­ing sum­mer breaks. She spent sev­eral years in the hos­pi­tal­ity indus­try as a sales man­ager for a resort hotel in Hood River fol­lowed by five years as Administrative Assistant at a small hos­pi­tal in the area.

Joan has trav­eled exten­sively and brings a good deal of expe­ri­ence to man­ag­ing logis­tics for the Coffee Corps Volunteers and Consultants.  She also assists with pro­posal devel­op­ment, report gen­er­a­tion and train­ing activities.