About Cooperative Coffees, Inc.

What is Cooperative Coffees?

Cooperative Coffees, born in 1999, is owned and managed collectively by a small group of specialty coffee roasters located throughout the United States. (See our member list). We are committed to supporting and partnering with small-scale, fair trade coffee farmers and their exporting cooperatives. By importing directly from  farmer partners such as Muhammad Salim of Gayo Mountain, Indonesia, Cooperative Coffees seeks to foster a more equitable system of coffee trade that directly benefits these farmers, their families and their communities.

We purchase our green coffee directly from 10 or more small farmer cooperatives in 6 coffee producing countries. By cooperatively combining our purchasing needs, we can multiply the positive effects of our coffee purchasing philosophy.

During our first year of operation, we purchased nearly 300,000 pounds of fair trade green coffee from these partner cooperatives. And at the beginning of the growing season, we provide low-interest loans to many of these cooperatives for supplies and living expenses.

By evaluating and comparing our current sources of raw green coffee and combining our purchasing needs, the roaster-owners determined that we could successfully launch our own importing organization and purchase directly. Cooperative Coffees was born!

Sumatran Shade Coffee Farm

Fair Trade verses Free Trade

Heine Brothers' Coffee  is committed to fair trade, rather than free trade practices. Free trade allows the open, free market to determine who will succeed. Results? With no guidelines, the poor and disenfranchised often get left behind.

Coffee farmers are typically some of the poorest people on the planet. We expect them to grow the most fragrant and delicious coffee and then individually pick each ripe coffee cherry by hand. In the end, they are rarely paid a living wage for these efforts.

We purposely source our coffee from these little guys, who often do not have access to capital and basic market information. Often these small farmers cannot directly export their coffee - and are therefore forced to deal with middlemen, also called coyotes. Cooperative Coffees develops direct relationships with partner-producers based on fairness and an open exchange of information.

Fair Trade guarantees these folks a livable, fair wage. If the international coffee market price for a pound of coffee goes below this fair trade price (which it often does), we pay the farmers the higher fair trade price. If the coffee market goes above the fair trade price, the farmer gets the higher price.

read the latest Cooperative Coffees newsletter 1 | 2 | 3
(winter '05)

Never doubt that a small, thoughtful group of citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has… -- Margaret Mead

An old idea, an old commodity, and a new concept creatively combined to impact the industry and producers, cooperatively.