Meet Cooperative Coffees

by Karen Foley

Cooperative Coffees is the brainchild of Bill Harris and the baby of a handful of other small American and Canadian roasters. Harris fell into the idea through a series of coincidences. He had left a corporate job in the foodservice industry and was looking for a life change, so when a friend invited him to build houses for Habitat for Humanity in Guatemala, he jumped at the opportunity. Little did he know he would be constructing homes for coffee farmers. "We were digging a foundation for a farmer on the side of a hill when we accidentally covered a coffee plant with fill dirt," Harris recalls. "The farmer got so upset that when we covered the second plant, he stopped the work, and for an hour and a half, he explained how important these coffee plants were. He allowed us to continue working once we promised that we would not cover any more of his coffee plants." Struck by how much the plants meant to the farmer, it dawned on Harris that the trip, ostensibly about building houses, was turning out to be about coffee.

Eager to learn more, Harris began visiting other coffee co-ops, talking with growers about the difficulties they had faced in getting their coffees to the American marketplace. When he returned to the United States, he began thinking of ways to help small coffee farmers connect directly to American buyers. "This was before I had heard of what we know now as fair trade," he says. "I was simply looking for a way to establish a more direct market for growers."

For the next year, Harris continued researching and traveling to origin, and in 1998, he founded Cafe Campesino, an Americus, Ga.-based importer and roaster of sustainable coffees. Over the next year and a half, he concentrated on finding buyers for his coffees. He secured a few loyal customers, but more often than not, he met with resistance. His prices were considerably higher than what most roasters wanted to pay, and his selection was limited. "Conceptually, most people agreed with what I was trying to do, but in reality, when you only have a couple of coffees to offer, most roasters aren't interested. They don't want to use an importer for one or two coffees."

Feeling pressure to make Cafe Campesino more financially viable and looking for a way to make the concept of directly buying sustainable coffees more appealing to roasters, Harris threw an idea out to his core customers: "What if we all go into business together and form a cooperative in the U.S. that imports from growing cooperatives elsewhere?"

So in the fall of 1999, he set out on a one-month driving tour around the eastern U.S., pitching his cooperative concept to small roasters he thought might take interest. "I found seven roasters who said they would love to go in together," he says. With that, Harris hired Daniel Pistone to manage Cafe Campesino, which went from being an importing and roasting operation to being solely a roaster and, of course, a member of the fledgling co-op. Harris, in turn, became president of Cooperative Coffees.

The Making of a Co-op

From the start, the mission of Cooperative Coffees has been to help its roaster members source a greater variety certified-organic and fair-trade coffees and, in the process, establish more direct, transparent connections with farmers. "When you only need 40 or 80 bags of a particular varietal each year, your options for purchasing are limited to what is offered by various brokers," says Dean Cycon, one of the co-op's founders and the owner of Dean's Bean Organic Coffee Co., a roaster/wholesaler in New Salem, Massachusetts. "By pooling our buying power, we are able to go directly to farmers, create personal relationships and get our needs met."

Currently, there are 14 members stretching from Rhode Island to Washington State (although most are concentrated east of the Mississippi). Some are roaster/retailers, others are roaster/wholesalers, but all are small-sized operations that are committed to selling sustainable coffees. Like any non-profit co-op, Cooperative Coffees has officers and a board of directors, and recently, it formed several committees to oversee critical aspects of the group: membership, finance and green beans.

The finance committee approves spending and looks for ways to raise capital and qualify for loans. The membership committee markets the co-op, seeking out new members and answering questions about the co-op from interested roasters. In addition to approving purchases and overseeing quality issues, the green committee makes the initial decision to work with certain producer groups. To date, Cooperative Coffees has established partnerships with producers in Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Cameroon, Sumatra, and Ethiopia. Recently, based on input from all of the co-op's members, the committee chose East Timor as its next origin of interest. "Fair trade is concentrated in Latin America, and we want to continue working with groups there, but we also want to expand into other growing areas," says Harris. "The co-op brought on Sumatra last year, Ethiopia this year, and soon we will add East Timor."

The formation of committees grew out of the co-op's annual membership meeting, which takes place every fall and offers the group a chance to collectively examine purchases, relationships with producers, coffee quality, and goals and accomplishments. Last year's meeting was hosted by Peace Coffee in Minneapolis, and according to Harris, it was both philosophical and strategical. Members spent half a day with a human rights organizer who updated the group on the impact of the Zapatista revolution on coffee communities in Mexico's Chiapas region. They also examined how the co-op's money was spent in the prior year, and they determined how much coffee the group would need for the upcoming season.

In addition to the annual meeting, co-op members gather informally at the yearly Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Conference, they communicate via e-mail and phone, and they travel together to origin as often as possible. Origin trips have become more frequent and better attended over the past year. Last year, half of the members traveled to Mexico and Guatemala, and this year, almost everyone went to either Ethiopia, Mexico, Guatemala, or Nicaragua. "Our goal is not for everyone to travel together at once," Harris says. "We want to spread out and make sure we visit as many farming groups as we can each year."

How It Works

To become a member of Cooperative Coffees, you must purchase one share of stock in the co-op, you must guarantee a portion of the co-op's line of credit (in the form of a letter of credit from your bank to the co-op's bank stating that you will stand for a small portion of the co-op's debt), and you must commit to buying 10,000 pounds of beans per year.

Members book green coffee orders around the end of one year for the following year. Based on past purchasing history and future projections, the members can estimate how much coffee they will need. Once the coffee is purchased, most of it arrives at a warehouse in New Orleans, where it is re-sorted based on member commitments. The coffee is then shipped to warehouses in Minneapolis and Toronto, where it is distributed to nearby member roasters. As membership expands west, Harris expects the co-op to eventually open warehouses in other parts of the country. "Right now, our primary warehouse is in New Orleans, but I see us becoming more like other importers, where we store coffee from coast to coast."

Not all of the members buy all of their green coffee through Cooperative Coffees. Harris says that more are shifting over to buying solely through the co-op, but some of the roasters want to purchase beans that are not available as fair-trade-certified coffees, so they continue to buy from other importers as well.

All of the co-op's beans are fair-trade-certified, meaning the roasters pay a minimum $1.26 per pound. Many of the coffees are also certified-organic, placing the minimum price at $1.41. But Harris stresses that Cooperative Coffees is always willing to pay a premium for quality. For instance, "in Costa Rica there's a new organic coffee that producers are asking $1.80 per pound for, and we're gladly paying it," he says.

Quality control is addressed by sending every coffee sample to Mane Alves, president of Coffee Lab International in Waterbury, Vt., for final evaluation. Alves uses the same cupping criteria established by the SCAA, and he rates the coffees on a scale from one to 100. Coffees are considered commercial-grade below 80 and specialty-grade above 80. Alves tests for bean density, moisture, size, and defects. Then he roasts the coffee, grinds it and cups the samples. He says that the quality of Cooperative Coffees' samples can vary, but he believes the co-op's coffees have improved considerably over the past few years. "At first, the coffees were in the upper echelon of commercial," he says. "Now they're definitely specialty coffees. Just recently, I cupped an exceptional Colombian coffee for the co-op. In a blind cupping, I would have no problem giving that coffee a 90, and I don't give 90s very often."

Facing the Challenges

Not surprisingly, Harris has had to contend with the ongoing perception that organic and fair-trade coffees lag behind in quality. But the co-op's members insist that sourcing quality sustainable coffees is not a problem. "We expect the best quality that farmers are capable of producing," Harris says. "Because we're in long-term partnerships and we're paying what these days are considerably higher prices than most people, we expect the best. The co-ops respect what we're doing, and we find that with rare exception, we're getting the best they can produce, which is excellent coffee."

Another of the co-op's challenges has been financing. "We could sell a lot more fair-trade coffee if we had the financing in place to bring in more," Harris says. "So that's a constant challenge: How many members do we have, and how much money do we have access to in order to buy more coffee?"

He says that he responds to new membership inquiries every day, but it's often difficult to convince small business owners to make the financial commitment. "Once I explain that you have to pay money to join and that you have to commit to buying a certain amount of green beans, a lot of people aren't interested," he says. "It's typically a commitment new roasters don't want to make. But those who have been in business for a while are probably roasting at least 10,000 pounds, so it's not so scary."

Down the Pike

With a goal of recruiting another three or four members this year, Harris's mantra for the co-op is slow and steady. "The co-op is much more than a buying club; it is people going into business together," he says. "We're bringing in business partners, so we need to progress at a rate that allows the co-op to absorb new members effectively." He adds that as Cooperative Coffees increases its manpower, growth will accelerate. He envisions eventually having a member in every state, but he reiterates that he's not in a hurry. "Right now, I don't feel the need to recruit aggressively," he says. "First and foremost, I want to service the members we have."

As for other possible endeavors, Harris would like to see members pool their resources to secure discounted pricing on packaging materials, equipment and shipping. He also hopes that origin travel will become an even bigger priority among members.

Harris is not alone in his ambition. Kevin Walters, a co-op member and co-owner of Alternative Grounds, a roaster/retailer in Toronto, says that he would like to see the co-op get involved in more need-based projects in coffee communities, an interest that stems from a recent trip he took to Mexico with several other co-op members. "We visited a community with 150 schoolchildren, and when we asked if there was anything they needed for their school, they told us that they needed paper," he says. "So we got together and purchased paper and notebooks for all of the students.'"

Gary Heine, one of Cooperative Coffees'  founders and co-owner of Heine Brothers Coffee, a roaster/retailer in Louisville, Ky., also has future hopes for the co-op, such as working with decaffeinated coffees and exploring the possibility of importing fair-trade teas. But like the 13 other members of Cooperative Coffees, he's perfectly content with what the group has accomplished thus far: sourcing quality sustainable coffees, forging equitable, transparent partnerships with small farmers, and bringing the message of fair trade back to consumers. "We have the opportunity to change the world every time we buy, roast and sell a coffee," he says. "Fourteen roasters around the country are putting their money where their mouths are, and that can be a very powerful thing."

For more information on Cooperative Coffees, visit www.cooperativecoffees.com or call 229/924-2468.

Reprinted with permission from Fresh Cup Magazine, a monthly publication for the specialty coffee and tea industries. For more information, visit www.freshcup.com.