Recent years have seen a spike in the retail price for coffee paid by consumers in their local stores and cafes. But, despite that, the price farmers get paid for coffee hasn’t meaningfully changed in four decades.

Coffee farmers are at the whim of a complex global commodities exchange that leaves them powerless to set their own prices and subject to massive instability from season to season. In many countries, the price for a pound of coffee falls well under the cost to produce that coffee, leaving farmers at a loss financially, dependent on predatory bank loans and uncertain about the future.

We untangle the complicated history of coffee pricing, how we got here, what’s the cost of doing nothing, and what it looks like to remake the global coffee pricing model from the ground up. Millions of coffee farmers and their communities depend on us getting this right, and we’re going to explore how.

Featuring:

• Camilo Enciso Suarez, Director, ASOPEP Farmers Cooperative
• Chad Trewick, consultant at Reciprocafé, Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide
• Grayson Caldwell, Senior Sustainability Director, Bellwether Coffee

Owning a small business is hard. Like, really, really hard. The last two years have made it almost impossible.

Even before COVID upended the independent cafe model and turned all our coffee shops into sidewalk cafes and mini bodegas, coffee businesses have had to get creative to continue thriving in a crowded field, and survive in a world of high costs and low margins.

We speak to three companies who each found unique ways to future-proof their businesses from the risks posed to today’s cafes, and come out better, healthier and more resilient than before.

Learn how nurturing diverse revenue streams can lead to financial freedom, how leaning into your core mission can strengthen customer loyalty, and how to effectively pivot without losing your identity (or your business).

Featuring:

• Steve Holt, Founder and Owner at Unravel Coffee
• Doug Hewitt - Co-Founder and CEO at 1951 Coffee Company
• Matthew Fuller, Owner, Mudpenny
• Sean Hamilton, Director of Coffee Sales, Mudpenny

Almost all of the carbon footprint in your morning cup of coffee is created after it leaves the farm, and yet farmers are the ones experiencing outsized, immediate impacts of carbon related climate change.

Sustainability experts, coffee farmers and climate researchers weigh in on where carbon lives in the coffee lifecycle (and where it doesn’t), the surprising ways cafes can mitigate their impact immediately (hint: it’s not compostable straws), and what the future looks like for coffee farms if we don’t act today.

Featuring:

• Marianella Baez Jost, Founder, Farmers Project Costa Rica and Cafe Con Amor
• Kim Elena Ionescu, Chief Sustainability and Knowledge Development Officer at Specialty Coffee Association
• Fernanda Avila Swinburn | Senior Research Analyst, Boundless Impact