Over the past few months, a debate over the state of the market has raged between people with very different visions of how that market will evolve into the future. The tenor of the debate has been respectful, but charged, marked by references to class warfare, crony capitalism, core values and special interests. I am […]
Today I grab the third rail of coffee quality: the R word. After nearly eight years of working for CRS on high-value Arabica coffee in Central America, I have relocated to Ecuador to direct the Borderlands Coffee Project, which will be helping to reactivate a Robusta coffee culture in decline in the Amazon. We are […]
Over the past week and a half, I have been posting on the issue of how coffee companies are investing at origin. Today: what they are investing in, and how that may be changing.
I have been closely watching the way coffee companies engage in the coffeelands over the past five years or so. Most fit neatly under one of the “3Ps” of coffee philanthropy: public relations, process and product improvements, and people-centered investment. (OK, really there are 4Ps.)
