Retail and specialty roasters

Retail and specialty roasters

Allegro/Whole Foods shade coffee promotion

It was nice to be in a Whole Foods Market today and see some of their Allegro Coffee varieties in a display featuring birds and their “Caffeinate Your Conscience with Shade Grown Coffee” promotion, going on through early April. The web site has a brief but accurate blurb about the importance of shade coffee to birds, and a number of species are portrayed on the in-store display. A few were odd choices to represent shade coffee, especially the two shorebirds (Solitary Sandpiper and Lesser Yellowlegs). These shorebirds are definitely long-distance migrants which winter in the tropics, but obviously do not use forested habitats.

On the plus side, Allegro’s three featured shade coffees do come from sustainable sources. All are organic.

  • El Salvador, Santa Adelaida Cooperative. Also Rainforest Alliance certified. You can read my review of this coffee here.
  • Guatemala, Lake Atitlan, La Voz Cooperative. This co-op (full name: La Voz qui Clama en el Desierto), which began growing coffee in 1985, now comprises 120 families. Coffee is grown at 1500 meters in the district of San Juan La Laguna, SololÁ¡ near Lake Atitlan. I believe at one time this was Smithsonian Bird-Friendly certified, but it is not currently on their list. If so, it’s more likely this has to do with economics (the expense of renewing certification) versus a change in ecological management.
  • Mexico, Zaragoza, 21st of September Cooperative. Fair Trade certified. This is the same source that was used in the 2007 Counter Culture Holiday Blend, and you can read that review here. I also gave Allegro’s a try. It was a light roast somewhere in between the two roast levels Counter Culture used in their blend, and it was outstandingly sweet and candy-like. Really an exceptional example of a chocolatey classic Latin American coffee.

Kudos to Whole Foods and Allegro Coffee Roasters for bringing the birds and coffee connection to the attention of the public.

Retail and specialty roasters

Einstein’s Bros. and Noah’s coffees

[This post for background only: Einstein and allied stores were acquired by JAB Holding in 2014 as part of a large buy-up of coffee companies.]

In honor of leap day/year, Einstein Bros. Bagels and Noah’s Bagels, both owned by Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc., are offering regular coffee for 29 cents on February 29 only if you say “Happy Leap Day” to the person taking your order.

Researching corporate coffee sourcing is difficult and generally unrewarding, although my goal is to eventually cover as many of the popular chains as I can. This promotion prompted me to take a look at Einstein’s. Einstein Noah Restaurant Group has five independent brands and 600 stores in the U.S. The most numerous are Einstein’s (300 locations) and Noah’s, and I’ll concentrate on those since they are offering the cheap coffee promotion.

Background and suppliers
ENRG acquired Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea in 1996, which served as the company coffee supplier. However, it was sold in 2004. (The ENRG corporate site briefly mentions that the company has its own coffee roasting plant; I believe this was the Willoughby’s plant and that the information is out-of-date.) The latest annual report states that “all our coffee is purchased through a sole-sourced third party provider.” A later quarterly SEC filing notes that this source was under contract through 2007, and a second supplier is contracted for 2008.

The first supplier is Coffee Bean International. CBI is an Oregon-based supplier to coffee houses and retailers across North America. Last year, CBI was acquired by Farmer Bros. Co., an institutional coffee supplier. They describe themselves as a high-volume roaster, not a specialty coffee roaster, hence the CBI acquisition. CBI is to remain independent (ergo, Farmer Bros. may be the “second” supplier”). Farmer Bros. I’m less impressed with. There is not much detail on their coffee sourcing on their web site aside from the usual uninformative “Colombian blend” and “100% arabica” descriptions. Nothing about organic, Fair Trade, or other sustainable or certified coffees. In their investor information, they list their main competition as the nasty multi-nationals, which puts them in a different (and worse) league as CBI.

Farmer Bros. declared it won’t change the way CBI sources its coffee. The question is how much more Einstein’s and Noah’s will purchase from the lower-end Farmer Bros. offerings, versus CBI.

The bottom line on sustainability
CBI, apparently the main supplier of Einstein’s and Noah’s coffees, has a decent level of transparency. Granted, a number of the sources are highly likely to be sun-coffee growers, such as the Colombia and Costa Rica. Others in CBI’s organic line are likely to be more sustainable, such as their Mexican and perhaps Guatemalan coffees. The trouble is, of course, that you have no idea which source goes into the typical offerings at the retail level. Einstein’s has five daily brews, including their Neighborhood Blend and similarly generic-named coffees. Noah’s has four daily offerings, all unhelpfully named after New York neighborhoods.

However, each has a Fair Trade/certified organic coffee (which I believe is the same blend): Global Village at Einstein’s and Tribeca Blend at Noah’s. They are created by CBI, from Latin American, African, and Asian coffees. Cross-referencing that with CBI’s organic selections, we can guess that the Latin American component is from Mexico, Guatemala, or Peru (the latter grows a lot of sun coffee, even organic). The Asian is almost surely Sumatran. There are no organic African coffees listed, but of their conventional African sources the most likely country they’d obtain FT/O from would be Ethiopia.

Thus, the Global Village/Tribeca FT/O coffee seems to be the most sustainable choice, certainly better than whatever Dunkin’ Donuts or 7-Eleven is dolling out.  Whether these blends will be available as a 29 cent selection tomorrow, I don’t know. I suggest asking for it, and encouraging both Einstein’s and Noah’s to offer more sustainable coffees on a daily basis. Let them know it’s important to you!

Certifications / Retail and specialty roasters

Green Earth Coffee: A cautionary tale

[July 2008 update at bottom of post] I recently received an inquiry about Green Earth Coffee Company, which sells several varieties of Costa Rican coffee promoted as eco-friendly. This struck a reader as at odds with my post on how coffee is typically grown in that country. All of Green Earth’s Costa Rican coffees are noted as being organic and eco-friendly or shade grown (a term with no legal definition). The Dota coffee is listed as being certified as Bird-Friendly by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC), but according to SMBC, it is not.

There are no Costa Rican producers now certified by SMBC. I double-checked with SMBC regarding the Green Earth coffee, and was told that they “had never heard of this company.” SMBC proceeded to send two or three e-mails asking for proof of certification to Green Earth, but after over two weeks had gotten no response. So, the source for the Green Earth coffee being advertised as certified Bird-Friendly either never had certification, had certification that has lapsed, or has been certified by one of SMBC’s certifying partners who in turn did not notify SMBC. The latter is unlikely as it is a big no-no, risking the reputation of the agency, and not useful to the farm if they aren’t listed as being certified.

Another thing I discovered: Green Earth actively seeks donations and notes that a portion of the profits from some of their coffees go to humanitarian causes. It turns out that all of the non-profit partners and projects I could find connected to this company are evangelical Christian missionary organizations. Green Earth owner Randy Sperger is referred to on the Adventures in Missions web site as “our missionary friend” working on providing basic medical care to some indigenous people in Costa Rica. The post went on to say “Over the longer term the goal is to provide housing and start the process of sharing the gospel.”

I could find no reference on the Green Earth web site is Christianity, religion, or missionary work mentioned. If they want to promote their brand of religion by selling coffee, donating profits, and soliciting donations, fine. But personally I think it’s dishonest or misleading to not explicitly indicate the strong religious component to much of their work, especially when they are working with tribes such as the Maleku, who are struggling to hold on to their original traditions and culture, which surely does not include Christian religious practices.

I will amend this post should I receive an update on the status of the certification. This situation is a reminder that if you are unsure about the certification claims, you should check with the certifier:

  • Smithsonian “Bird-Friendly” — The list of certified producers on the SMBC web site is kept current.  The term “Bird-Friendly” is trademarked by SMBC, and coffee advertised as Bird-Friendly must carry their seal.
  • Rainforest Alliance — This page lists the crops, including coffee, certified by Rainforest Alliance (RA), and you can download all the certified producers of each crop. The lists are updated monthly.

If you have any questions about a particular source and are having problems verifying claims, drop me a line and I will do my best to help.

UPDATE: On 31 July 2008, I received information from Randolph Sperger of Green Earth Coffee. Here are the portions of his email that explained why his Dota coffee was advertised as Smithsonian Bird-Friendly when it was not listed on the Smithsonian web site as such:

We purchased our Dota — Tarrazu from Arturo Segura at the Sol Colibri farm.  Their coffee is certified organic and I was informed by him that it was Smithsonian certified. I told him upon purchase  that if I could not say that in my advertising, I didn’t want to buy the coffee because we wanted Bird-Friendly coffee. He said it was. I believed him.

According to Mr. Segura when I called him about the problem he confessed to me that he had let his certification expire.  He assured me that he would take care of it.  I  believed him. [When I contacted him] he said that indeed the coffee he sold us and his farm, though qualified in 70% as Bird-Friendly, is not certified.  He decided not to go through with the certification process due to expense and burrocratic [sic] compliances. That leaves us with the proverbial egg on the face. As a result I have made the first steps in changing our web page. I am very ashamed of this error and have learned a great lesson about requiring paper work.

I appreciate your concern regarding the possible lack of certification of our coffee. That has forced me,  in the middle of an extremely busy schedule to follow through with Mr. Segura. Thanks for that.

As of 12 August 2008, the Dota coffee is referred to as mostly “Eco-Friendly” with a stray instance of “Bird-Friendly,” but there is no mention of Smithsonian certification any longer.

Coffee-related products / Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Book review: Starbucked

I’ve just finished Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture by Taylor Clark, just released by Little Brown. It’s an entertaining, well-written and researched “biography” of the genesis and rise of Starbucks, and the concurrent/coincident specialty coffee scene in the U.S. Anyone interested in Starbucks (love, hate, or neutral) or the genius of retail marketing will really get into this book. Those intrigued with American culture will also find ponderable material here, and it will be valuable for readers who want to understand the post-1970s history of coffee in the U.S. (for the most thorough overall history of coffee, you can do no better than Mark Pendergrast’s Uncommon Grounds).

Clark leaves few stones unturned, especially when discussing the evolution of the Starbucks marketing strategy. The one thing that was barely discussed was sustainability. The closest is an entire chapter on Fair Trade which correctly points out that low-quality robusta coffee is the enemy of struggling coffee farmers, whose

“…fortunes rise and fall on the world’s demand for good coffee beans, and no one has done more to generate an insatiable global thirst for high-quality coffee than Starbucks.”

We can quibble about the quality of Starbucks beans, but the distinction here is between the quality of the big grocery store brands versus Starbucks. While exploding the myth that Starbucks harms independent coffee houses, Clark makes a point I have made here several times: that Starbucks has drawn out people who never strayed from Folgers, and these converts go on to explore other coffee venues.  And with any sort of luck, these converts don’t turn back to grocery store brands. Clark also echoes one of my mantras:

Helping lift farmers from poverty, then, isn’t so much a matter of hectoring companies like Starbucks (even if the company isn’t the human rights champion it claims to be) as it is of making sure people never drink the cheap and exploitive coffee offered by conglomerates like the Big Four.

Not only lifting farmers from poverty, but also preserving biodiversity.

Starbucked will help readers understand why we owe Starbucks quite a bit of credit for transforming coffee culture and triggering a chain of events that is helping consumers realize their own transformative power via the choices they make for their daily cup.