How does a new commercial roaster begin to build relationships with farms?
Hello all-
I'm not currently active in the retail coffee community, but I'm an avid home roaster and I'm starting to sit down and examine whether I am capable of starting my own small-batch roastery. I am aware of resources like Zephyr, Cafe Imports and the like, but how does one begin to find farms and form business relationships with them? And to barrage you with more specific questions:
Is it wise for a roaster to visit every farm that they do direct business with, or is it just as normal to approach them long-distance?
Is there a directory or database where farms are listed, or are they all known through networking and word of mouth?
How keen are farms going to be towards me knowing that I'm a rather small fish in the pond of specialty coffee?
Is it worth it to even try this route as a new business owner, or should I stick with the importers?
I'm sure I'll come up with more questions as well, but these are some of my initial concerns that I can think of regarding this topic. Thank you all!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jay Caragay on
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The nice thing about starting out now is that going to origin is no longer a strange and odd thing. Back in the day when Duane Sorensen and Geoff Watts were first hitting the trail, it was truly the Wild West of coffee buying. People thought they were crazy.
As with anything, building a relationship takes time and trust. Since you're small, you might best start out with the US importers and getting to know the trade first. Understand how coffee is imported and how to actually purchase coffee and figure out your volumes.
From there, maybe head out there and meet people. Go to the SCAA and get a feel for things, talk and mingle.
Is it wise to visit every farm? I think so. However, that's not a cheap nor easy proposition. If you can afford it, then by all means.
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Permalink Reply by Matt B on
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There have been a couple of threads on direct trade. Have you read them yet?
The short answer is that piggybacking with the importers you work with will probably be the best/"easiest" way to go the relationship coffee path, but you're not going to be doing that right off the bat. Getting 1500 lbs of coffee (that's ten bags--a small microlot) from point a to point b is much more complicated than you think. And as I stated in one of those previous threads, you need to be able to cope with problems, which will occur. Do you have four grand to pay for that coffee FOB? Do you have another grand or so to pay someone to move it for you? And most importantly, if it shows up in the states and isn't what you thought you were getting (b/c the container sat in the sun at port for a month or two, or b/c there was water in the container and some of the bags got moldy, or b/c the exporter didn't actually give you Farmer X's coffee, etc.) what will you do? You own that coffee.
The shorter answer is that as a new roaster, it's probably best just to work with good importers.
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Permalink Reply by David Ziolkowski on
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Thank you Jay, I haven't spent much time checking out the SCAA's resources so I will dig around their website.
And thanks Matt for throwing quantifiable examples in there. I'll hunt down the direct trade threads as well.
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