Tamper Tantrum

This week, we’re releasing the final video of our trading models & certifications deep dive with an eponymous panel discussion recorded at last year’s first-ever RGE Camp featuring Sara Morrocchi (Vuna Origin Consulting), Eva Gefvert Nordell (Are Kafferosteri), and Joanna Alm (Drop Coffee Roasters). Covering everything from a high-level look at certification standards throughout the supply chain to a discussion of problematic dichotomies, this week’s release is highly roaster-focussed, with the panellists discussing the pros and cons of working within each model’s confines before ending with advice for roasters looking to develop better relationships with producers.

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Photograph by Jordan Sanchez for Roster Guild of Europe 

This week, we’re releasing the final video of our trading models & certifications deep dive with an eponymous panel discussion recorded at last year’s first-ever RGE Camp featuring Sara Morrocchi (Vuna Origin Consulting), Eva Gefvert Nordell (Are Kafferosteri), and Joanna Alm (Drop Coffee Roasters). Covering everything from a high-level look at certification standards throughout the supply chain to a discussion of problematic dichotomies, this week’s release is highly roaster-focussed, with the panellists discussing the pros and cons of working within each model’s confines before ending with advice for roasters looking to develop better relationships with producers.

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Photograph by Jordan Sanchez for Roster Guild of Europe 

When Ale sent us this month’s “Field Notes” from Finca Argentina, we felt it would be best to share with you as a stand-alone piece: despite its brevity, Ale’s update packs quite a punch to those unfamiliar with day-to-day life in El Salvador – or any coffee producing country, for that matter.  

www.nuovasimonelli.it/en

For those of you joining us primarily from the interwebs, our June releases may seem to be the last portion of a recent (inadvertent) series of talks, interviews, and discussions which deep dive into “green buying”. In reality, the panel discussions we’ll be sharing this week and a fortnight from today were the first that we organised and presented to a live audience as the second day of afternoon lectures at the first-ever Roaster Guild of Europe Camp last October.

Featuring a panel of Raphael Studer (Algrano), Sara Morrocchi (Vuna Origin Consulting), and Joanna Alm (Drop Coffee Roasters), Steve lead an open discussion that sought to pick through the ethical considerations at play when purchasing green coffee for a specialty coffee business, from a high level (origin country politics, human rights, climate change) to the farm level (wages/treatment of staff, the use of the “premium”, relationships and trust) and everything in between. Together, they share stories of unethical or questionably ethical purchasing and follow up with some actionable suggestions for those who wish to aim for a more ethical purchase.

As we prepared for this panel, the importance of a story – and its subsequent verification – appeared again and again in the context of coffee purchase, both green and brewed forms. To put this idea to the test, we asked the audience assess coffees once split into two groups: those assessing blind and those provided with information and backstory. Things didn’t quite go to plan logistically on a number of levels, so we 100% would not advocate these results to be indicative of correlation – let alone causation! In fact, we're pretty sure that these are nothing but some numbers on a page, but we promised to release the data.

Either way, we hope it provides you with some food for thought as you make your own buying decisions.

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PHOTO BY JORDAN SANCHEZ FOR ROASTER GUILD OF EUROPE

Joanna Alm | Drop Coffee

Joanna is also known for her passion for coffee education and community, participating as a speaker, panellist, lecturer, and attendee at coffee events worldwide both as Drop Coffee’s Head Roaster and as a working group member of the Roaster Guild of Europe. 

Sara Morrocchi | Vuna Origin Consulting

Sara has recently moved to Amsterdam to start her Vuna Origin Consulting, specialized in supply chain strategies and product development in green coffee and cacao. The perfect mix of origin travel, suppliers’ relationships and tropical products makes her work extremely exciting. She is passionate about creating long-term sustainable solutions to empower and incentivize supply chain actors in collaborative ways.

Raphael Studer | Algrano

For those of you joining us primarily from the interwebs, our June releases may seem to be the last portion of a recent (inadvertent) series of talks, interviews, and discussions which deep dive into “green buying”. In reality, the panel discussions we’ll be sharing this week and a fortnight from today were the first that we organised and presented to a live audience as the second day of afternoon lectures at the first-ever Roaster Guild of Europe Camp last October.

Featuring a panel of Raphael Studer (Algrano), Sara Morrocchi (Vuna Origin Consulting), and Joanna Alm (Drop Coffee Roasters), Steve lead an open discussion that sought to pick through the ethical considerations at play when purchasing green coffee for a specialty coffee business, from a high level (origin country politics, human rights, climate change) to the farm level (wages/treatment of staff, the use of the “premium”, relationships and trust) and everything in between. Together, they share stories of unethical or questionably ethical purchasing and follow up with some actionable suggestions for those who wish to aim for a more ethical purchase.

As we prepared for this panel, the importance of a story – and its subsequent verification – appeared again and again in the context of coffee purchase, both green and brewed forms. To put this idea to the test, we asked the audience assess coffees once split into two groups: those assessing blind and those provided with information and backstory. Things didn’t quite go to plan logistically on a number of levels, so we 100% would not advocate these results to be indicative of correlation – let alone causation! In fact, we're pretty sure that these are nothing but some numbers on a page, but we promised to release the data.

Either way, we hope it provides you with some food for thought as you make your own buying decisions.

---

PHOTO BY JORDAN SANCHEZ FOR ROASTER GUILD OF EUROPE

Joanna Alm | Drop Coffee
Joanna Alm is from Dalarna in the north of Sweden. She ran a coffee bar in Oslo for a few years, moved home to Sweden, and started working at Drop in 2010. A few years ago, Joanna became partner in the company and is now the CEO, head roaster, and green coffee buyer at Drop Coffee. She’s a three-time winner of the Swedish Roasting Championship (2014-2016) who has placed consistently in the final four at the World Roasting Championships during her time as Swedish Champion. 

Joanna is also known for her passion for coffee education and community, participating as a speaker, panellist, lecturer, and attendee at coffee events worldwide both as Drop Coffee’s Head Roaster and as a working group member of the Roaster Guild of Europe. 

Sara Morrocchi | Vuna Origin Consulting
Born in Italy and educated in the UK, Sara found her path in the specialty coffee sector in various roles since 2007. A social scientist by training, she began working as a development worker in Kenya in early 2000s, and started to grow an interest in ways to grow and strengthen rural supply chains in East Africa. She began working as East Africa supply chain manager for Sustainable Harvest in 2007. This role would keep her working in Tanzania for the next four years. Later, she moved to headquarters in Portland, OR heading up the Global Procurement and Supply Chain management team for 4 years.

Sara has recently moved to Amsterdam to start her Vuna Origin Consulting, specialized in supply chain strategies and product development in green coffee and cacao. The perfect mix of origin travel, suppliers’ relationships and tropical products makes her work extremely exciting. She is passionate about creating long-term sustainable solutio

As the specialty coffee industry grows and matures, there’s been an influx of people writing and talking about coffee and, in a very meta way, conversations about how content is produced, curated, and presented are eerily relevant to how we brew, sell, and present coffee to our customers. This week, Steve sits down with Standart’s Michal Molcan following the successful completion of this year’s Standart Festival in Bratislava to chat about content curation, aesthetics, creativity, and value propositions – each of which contain insightful lessons to those looking to build and grow a coffee business of any kind.

www.nuovasimonelli.it/en

This week sees the second and final installment of our time in Gothenburg “Cracking Certifications” with the Barista League: equipped with a shared foundation and understanding of certifications and their role in the coffee industry from our first installment, we turned our attention to baristas in the second half of “Cracking Certifications” as Steven Moloney (The Barista League) and Rubens Gardelli (Gardelli Specialty Coffees) joined Marcus Scahefer (Rainforest Alliance) and Joanna Alm (Drop Coffee) on the stage: as the consumer-facing link in the coffee chain, what role and responsibility do baristas have in consumer education? More importantly, when we do endeavour to educate consumers, are we truly acting as ambassadors for those whose livelihoods are most impacted by various certifications and trading models?

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Coffee Producer Video Submissions from "Cracking Certifications" at The Barista League: Sideline in Gothenburg, featuring (in order):

• Alejandro Martinez, Finca Argentina, El Salvador (IG: @alefincaargentina, http://www.fincaargentina.com/)

Written translation of Carlos Ureña below provided by Roukiat Delrue (IG: @roukiat): 

My name is Carlos Ureña and we are in Santa Maria de Dota, in Costa Rica; we are located 1,700 MASL. This farm is named La Pira de Dota. La Pira started in 2002, certified organic at the time and stopped the organic production in 2005.

We started organic production to do something different and simply because of our own conviction. The soil has a lot of rock and very little organic matter – so we wanted to increase the organic matter and at simultaneously work on an organic coffee. Like I said, something different to be able to start. At the time, micromills / microlots did not exist.

Why did we stop with the organic; well, first of all, in cold places, I do not recommend working organic coffee ; because in general terms, plants tend to be slower, much milder than others and hence there is less ‘return’ to the soil, less return of organic matter. That on one side; additionally, at this altitude, we not only produce organic but also quality – and we got paid like any other organic in the country and they were never really willing to recognize quality. 

Then in 2006, some people appeared interested in buying microlots, Japanse buyers;  they were buying based on quality. Basically, I took that as my opportunity to overcome the ‘tragedy of the organic’ to transition to sell quality instead.  That was the situation. I do try to remain nature –friendly, I don’t use chemical pest control, I try to use bio-fertilizers to work, so basically in a way it’s still organic - but not certified.  I kept the concept, I kept the lessons, and as I mentioned my own conviction to work in a nature-friendly way.

(What do you expect for the future)

I expect to still improve the soil; I also expect to change some varieties and change them into some that truly adjust to this weather that is so dry and still filled with rocks. I hope to keep working and that in the future my family also keeps working on this so that we can continue this marriage with the coffee buyers – and coffee drinkers!

(and what do you think of certifications)

It depends on which certification! (organic). Certifications tend to be very very demanding, also in economic terms they are very expensive and for us if it’s in the case of organic it’s more expensive, you need more labor, and to pay so much to others I really don’t believe in certifications or not in these.

Thank you!

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Welcome to this week’s mini-milestone, otherwise known as No. 80. We couldn’t let such an auspicious moment pass without featuring a special guest, and we couldn’t be happier that we were able to borrow Vuna Consulting’s own Sara Morrocchi for an hour to chat with Steve in this week’s podcast. For those of you who follow along with the live-event aspect of what we do, we’re sure you’re well familiar with Sara and her work – she joined us for discussions on certifications and green buying ethics at the first-ever Roaster Guild Camp in Estonia last year and again for “Cracking Certifications” with The Barista League in Gothenburg earlier this year. Each time, we felt that there wasn’t enough time to dig into her wealth of experience and strongly suspected that she could (and would!) take us to school if we ever had the opportunity to chat with her one-on-one. Very excitingly, she’s done exactly that in this week’s episode!

So, yes, this week, you’ll learn about Sara’s career journey from development to Sustainable Harvest to Vuna Consulting – but you’ll also learn about NGOs, USAID, cultural imperialism, empathy, social premiums, accountability, value propositions, authenticity, risk exposure, and much, much more.

http://www.nuovasimonelli.it/en/

On March 26 from 12:00 to 14:30, in the midst of a collective hangover from The Barista League the night before, we ran and recorded a special educational panel discussion hosted by local Kafferostare Per Nordby titled “Cracking Certifications” as a part of The Barista League: Gothenburg’s Sideline event series. Starting with the question, “why is talking about certifications so difficult?”, we brought together the voices of producers, certifying bodies, and green buyers to build a fuller picture of certification, from their aims to their achievements, as well as the considerations that producers and green buyers take into account when making decisions.

This week, we’re sharing the first half of “Cracking Certifications”, which focuses on the certifications themselves – Elisabet Lim (Fairtrade Sweden) and Marcus Scahefer (Rainforest Alliance) gave insight into how certifications work, their primary goals, and how the business of certification is structured. Joined later by Sara Morrocchi (Vuna Origin Consulting), Angel Mario Martinez-Garcia (Progreso Producer Development) and Joanna Alm (Drop Coffee), we examined certifications and trading models in the context of specialty coffee and its love affair with “direct trade” – is there only one way to be accountable, transparent, and sustainable, as our current conversations might have us believe? Or are there many paths to the same summit?

www.allycoffee.com