Unpacking Responsibility
We are in business to drive positive social and environmental impacts in the world. That doesn’t mean we are perfect at doing this - but we're deeply committed to the goal, and measuring our progress along the way.
Where Our Coffee Comes From
78%
Smallholder farmers
The vast majority of our coffee is produced on a small-scale farm (less than 10 hectares of land). Smallholder farmers must often aggregate in order to access market via informal producer associations, regional groupings or co-operative structures.
55%
Women-Driven Businesses
We work to alleviate this gender gap by supporting women in coffee. We define a Women-Driven coffee as one that drives direct income into the hands of women coffee producers, women-owned mills or exporters, or supports businesses where women have decision-making power.
13
Coffee producing countries
Coffee is produced in over 50 countries in some of the world’s poorest nations. We choose to buy from countries whose export earnings and populations rely heavily on producing commodity coffee, and where our support of specialty coffee production can stimulate a better economic outlook.
Transparency And Relationships
Are core values at the heart of our organization, and emblematic of our approach to responsible sourcing. Discover the story, people and places behind each of our coffees on each coffee's single coffee product page. We work with these value-aligned importing partners to connect with producers and producer groups, and to move our coffee from country of origin, to our roasting facility in Montreal: https://www.croptocup.com/ https://www.interamericancoffee.com/ https://www.atlascoffee.com/ http://www.redfoxcoffeemerchants.com/ https://semillla.com
Reducing Price Volatility For Farmers
The conventional economic model for valuing a pound of coffee on the market has historically and still today failed to consider farmer profitability. We work with coffee importers, farming communities, exporters and other actors to fix prices that are higher and more stable year to year than the alternative commercial floor price which fluctuates dramatically based on external forces like global supply and demand, or weather patterns. The average FOB* price to date, for coffees where this data was possible to collect, was $2.62/LB USD. The past five year average commercial price for a pound of coffee is $1.19/LB USD.
*FOB means "Free on Board", and refers to the final "seller" of coffee before our coffee leaves the export country. Often times the FOB income is earned by an exporter, a producer, or a producer group/co-op (We see all types of structures across our several supply chains). It is important to note price is only one indicator of equitable economics between supply chain actors. An FOB price does not = the price paid to farmer. This is what our industry refers to as "Farmgate" price. We are conducting ongoing research and pricing discovery in able to better report on price transmission for every LB of coffee that we source and sell. Stay tuned.
Reducing Our Environmental Impact
The activities required to produce and commercialize coffee create carbon emissions of a very high intensity. Most of these negative impacts occur in the final phases of coffee's lifecycle (roasting, distributing, retailing, consuming). We have an enormous opportunity to improve the efficiency of our operations being a roaster/retailer, and here are some initiatives we've committed to across our supply chain:
Sourcing, cultivation, processing: > 30% of our past 32 coffees came from Organic certified co-ops > For every pound of coffee we purchase, we donate $0.02 cents to World Coffee Research whose mission is to create a toolbox of coffee varieties, genetic resources and accompanying technologies and to disseminate them strategically and collaboratively in producing countries to alleviate constraints to the supply chain of high quality coffee. Roasting packaging, shipping and distribution: > Roasting our coffee with an afterburner. Coffee roasters emit various pollutants including methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. Since we established our roasting facility we've seen great improvements to roasting technology, and look forward to implementing more energy efficient equipment into our roastery when we inevitably expand our operations. > Donating our experimental and waste roasted coffee on a recurring basis to these community organizations: Moisson Montreal, Native Women's Shelter or Mile End Mission. > Choosing biodegradable packaging material for our retail coffee bags, see our manufacturing partners here. > Packaging our café coffee for service in reusable buckets instead of disposable 5LB bags > We have two zero emission shipment options in Montreal for our online orders - Bike courier delivery with local courrier partners Chasseurs Courrier, and Pick-Up in Store Retail operations: > Composting coffee grinds and food waste at 2/3 of our Montreal café locations to reduce landfill contributions > Incentivizing our customers to bring reusable mugs by offering a $0.25 c discount > Working with local food suppliers for our pastry and dairy in order to maintain a shorter supply lifecycle
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