Coffee Sourcing... From Seed to Cup
We make sure that tansparency is key, that every one of our customers can see the full journey of their coffee... from seed to cup
Farmers/Cooperatives
It's simple, but if farmers aren't looked after then they won't produce a good crop. That's why we make sure that we only source beans from ethical, sustainable and well managed farms. The official Fairtrade have a minimum price for coffee, but we always make sure we pay well over this to ensure the farmers and everyone working there are cared for and their profits are good. This also includes coffee from women-only run farms, to help build gender equality and decrease the gender pay-gap. So we don't hold Fairtrade certification ourselves, but it doesn't mean that our coffee is not traded fairly!
A cooperative is a group of small-holding farms that work together to grow, harvest & process their coffee, ready for exporting. The exact same philosophy is used by Eco Coffee for single farms as is used for cooperatives.
Single Origins
A single origin is a slightly vague phrase but, in general, it means coffe is from one place. Alot of larger roasters will just use the country as a 'single origin'. However, we make sure our customers know exactly where their coffee is from... You'll find information on the exact farm/cooperative that these coffees are from on 'our coffee' pages here.
In all honesty, you won't see the organic certification logo too often, not because we don't believe in organic coffee, quite the opposite. We always ensure all coffees are grown, harvested and processed using sustainable methods. But with official branding it means every part of the supply chain has to pay for certification and that can mean smaller farms can't always afford it, so we'd all miss out on their delicious crop. The same goes for 'Fairtrade'. Although we don't have the logo on our products, doesn't mean that the farms aren't paid a good wage for their crop!
Importing
We do need to get the amazing coffee to us to roast somehow. We work along side some amazing importers who have the same ethical and sustainable philosophies as we do. We pay premiums to ensure that the farmers/exporters at origin are looked after and are not forced down in price to compete with multi-national, industrial roasters.
Roasting/Packaging
As we all know, fossil fuels will LITERALLY be the end of us. We need to start focussing on alternatives, in fact we needed to start focussing on alternatives many years ago. But that's a whole different rant.
When we started roasting our own coffee in 2023 we made sure that we would never rely on gas for our roasters, so we're 100% electric and in the summer of 2024, making the move to 'ecotricity' means that 100% of the energy fuelling our roasters and packaging machines is from renewable solar and wind farms only!
We also use 100% recyclable packaging, some places will go on about PLA and compostable packaging, which is good, don't get me wrong. And sometimes it is the best alternative of course. But alot of people don't have commercial composters in their garden or even have access to a local commercial composter, so end up going in landfill. It's alot easier to recycle! (as long as we remember which bin it goes in of course).
We also collect the used coffee grounds from many of our customers around the UK and bring them back to get reused, recycled and repurposed. They can go in to fuel for coffee roasters/BBQs/log burners etc. They can go in to compost to help regeneration. They also go in to other products/uses (skin-care, energy capture for the national grid, furniture refurbishment, and many more). Check out our piece on Coffee by-products here.