Forum

Dear SCAA member,

Hopefully you recognize the name, Coffee Fest, the specialty coffee industry’s top retail trade show, consistently providing retailers with relevant information and new products to hone their business skills and up their bottom line.

I am writing to you today to ask you to consider the decisions the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) is making in servicing you and the specialty coffee industry across America as a whole. The management of SCAA is vigorously negotiating with the city of Seattle to produce the SCAA annual convention for six out of eight years in Seattle beginning in 2014.

We support the SCAA on the many good things they do for the industry and we have worked closely with them for all our years in business. We never have and never will encroach on the region in which they produce their annual show. If the SCAA came to Seattle once every 5 years, we would have no concerns. Coffee Fest has been produced in Seattle on an annual basis since 1992, for nineteen years. While Coffee Fest certainly doesn’t own Seattle, we do object to the SCAA’s plan to all but permanently locate here and expect that given the details and facts, you may object too.