To check out the previous post on the coffee price crisis, click here.
Last week we started this series with some background to the current coffee price crisis. This week we wanted to dive into the coffee we buy, and how we buy it. We’ll also look at the pros and cons of our approach.
In the commodity market, coffee is largely treated as one single product, with very little room for differentiation. Therefore, if the farmer can differentiate the coffee in some way, they can potentially receive a higher price for that coffee. This is a trend for just about every food product in the world, and coffee’s no different. There are many ways to achieve this, but one is by selling coffee based on its quality or flavour characteristics. That’s where we come in!
What do we buy?
We buy high-quality coffees that have special characteristics; in short, coffee that we want to drink lots of. We buy these coffees from farmers around the world, depending on the time of year and what is in season. There has been a trend towards really niche experimental coffees in the industry, and we occasionally go in for those, but they tend to represent a very small portion of a given farmer’s crop, and so we’re more interested in the really great everyday coffees that reflect the reality of specialty coffee.
In return for higher quality coffee, we’re able to pay much higher premiums than market rates, or even premiums for certified coffees. Some of the farms we buy from have certifications and they’re definitely one option for gaining higher prices for coffee, but for many it can be costly to get certifications, and for the farmers that we work with, the quality premium is higher than the possible premium for certified coffees.
How do we buy it?
Everything we buy happens through one person - Steve Leighton. He’s been a part of 3fe in one form or another since day one, and alongside Monika & Simon in the roastery, he’s responsible for buying the coffee that we roast at 3fe, as well as a few other roasteries that he’s a part of. This happens in a few different ways:
In all three of these scenarios, stability and transparency between all of the parties is the goal. We aim to buy coffee from the same farms year after year, and build relationships with the farmers, exporters and importers that we work with. No one method is better than another; each situation needs a different approach!
What are the pros?
What are the cons?
What next?
We are really proud of the coffees that we buy, and the way that we buy them. We definitely don’t want to dumb down the nuances of the coffees and farmers we buy from, but we do want to find clear parameters that represent our principles when it comes to coffee-buying, and put more structure to these principles. We also want to keep those cons above in mind, and find ways to communicate coffee sustainability issues to customers.
More to follow on both of these in the coming weeks!