We at TBD Coffee Co know what a fresh cup of the good stuff means to its drinkers. For some people, it's a great energizer or a mood booster, and for others, those sweet, smoky flavors have us hooked (it’s us, we’re others). Whatever their reason may be, more than 150 million Americans drink about 400 million cups of coffee daily, according to reports. That’s more than 140 billion cups over the course of a year!
So, what would a world without coffee look like? Do we really want to find out? Umm…obviously not. We can probably assume those 150 million angry people without their daily dose of caffeine would be pretty scary. Perhaps a better question then, is what are we doing to ensure we never have to live through this hellish nightmare reality? The simple answer is supporting coffee sustainability.
What is coffee sustainability?
At this point you might be asking, “what is coffee sustainability”, and understandably so. You won’t often hear this term thrown around at your local coffee shop (you’re far more likely to hear some “business man” yelling into his earpods as he waits for his iced Americano), so let’s get into it. According to Conservation International, “sustainable coffee” is defined as coffee grown in a way that conserves nature and provides better livelihoods for the people who grow and process it. The first part is pretty much a no-brainer (thanks, Conservation International), so let’s focus on the latter part — providing better livelihoods for the people who grow and process it.
Let’s talk about coffee farmers
Around the world, over 25 million coffee farmers provide the raw product (coffee beans) for this whopping $400 billion industry. They are responsible for planting, caring for, and processing the slow-growing coffee plant, which takes anywhere from 3-4 years to bear fruit. As you might imagine, growing such a stubborn little plant isn’t the easiest job in the world. Furthermore, farmers are at the mercy of unstable weather conditions that can dramatically decrease their yields from year to year.
To make matters worse, GGC Coffee says that most of the world's coffee farmers live well below the poverty line. What's even more shocking is that most farmers don’t know where their coffee beans go or what price they end up selling for. It’s a sad reality that coffee farmers, who are essentially the quarterbacks of this industry, are usually the lowest paid in the production process. With all the hard work these growers put in to make America's favorite beverage, they don’t seem to get very much out of it, which is totally unfair because let’s be real — without coffee farmers, America wouldn’t be running on $#*%…sorry Dunkin’.
So, what are we doing about it?
Coffee is getting more and more expensive (and we aren’t just talking about your $10 caramel mocha whateveratto). While inflation is up 8%, coffee prices are up a staggering 16%! This is due to a variety of factors, such as fertilizer shortages from Russia, unreliable weather conditions, and last but not least, a push to make sure coffee farmers get a more equitable piece of the pie. So even though the average cost for a cup of coffee might have gone up, there’s a lot more to the story.
TBD Coffee Co is doing our part to help farmers stay in business and make a fair living. We understand the critical role these farmers play, so we are committed to strict standards that support sustainable and ethically-sourced coffee. How do we do this? Well, for starters, we make sure that farmers always get a fair price for their product by only sourcing our beans from farms with fair and ethical labor standards. Additionally, we aim to make direct partnerships with small farms through our membership with World Coffee Research, an organization that has a true and direct impact at the farm level. Lastly, we only buy Fair Trade products once we've established a strong enough relationship with the farm to offset the negative impacts of the program (such as the cost to the farmer). So the next time you complain about the cost of a good cup of Joe, think about the farmers, ok
So, what are YOU doing about it?
As a coffee drinker, you can also play an integral role in supporting farmers by buying responsibly (ahem, hi there!). Together, we can ensure that coffee is here to stay while also ensuring coffee farmers earn a fair living for their hard work, because at the end (or, rather at the beginning) of the day, where would we be without them?
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