A little INFORMATION

Where does our coffee come from:

We work with specialty coffee importers who treat fair trade as the floor and not the ceiling; most paying the farmers and producers 50-100% more than fair trade pricing. We also donate 50 cents from each pound of wholesale coffee, and 25 cents from each retail bag sold in our shop, to our ‘you sip, we give’ initiative (more on that below) to support coffee farming communities and those who empower them. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to roast and share the coffee skillfully grown and nurtured many miles from our Vermont home base. Our commitment to supporting the communities of our coffee farmers is the basis of our ethos to make excellent specialty coffee, approachable. We are happy to speak more to this anytime!

Transparency:

Since our inception, we’ve been very transparent about how we buy coffee, what we pay for the green coffee we bring in, and why we choose buying practices that feel good and do good for the farmer. We, along with many specialty coffee roasters, pay an average of $6.00 per pound on average to get green coffee in the door. After 11-15% moisture loss from roasting and packing materials, the cost of goods comes to $7.50 per pound on average, sold for $12 per pound, wholesale. We’ve found that in specialty coffee, producers and farmers see an average of $3.00 per pound for milled coffee. After harvesting, processing, farm maintenance, etc., they’re left with about $1.00 profit. How does this compare to the C-market price for arabica? Producers and farmers see only $1.75 per pound on average, leaving a small margin for quality and profit for the farmer. The balance of the costs we pay goes to shipping, customs, shipping again, and our (wonderful!) importers. Buying coffee at higher prices is a good start, but we want to continue to learn more — and want to continue to share it with you. We’re grateful to our importers who continue to connect us with great coffee farmers and are open about the ins and outs of the process so that we can be as transparent with our community as possible.

Our Retail Bags:

We have custom retail bags made that are compostable. These are compostable both at home in addition to being compostable in a commercial facility. That means you can throw these empty bags in your compost bin at your house, and also in those that may be found outside a commercial or residential building that are picked up by a truck. In our eyes, sustainable packaging is only as sustainable as one’s access to doing it correctly.

Other things we love about custom packaging? On the bottom of the bag, in addition to the standard roast date, you’ll find a date that we recommend drinking the coffee after. This is the date that the coffee will have off-gassed enough for it to be at its peak for enjoyment. You can of course enjoy the coffee prior to that date, but it provides a recommendation we’d make in person, just in writing for your convenience (and because unfortunately, our bags can’t talk yet. Is that next?!)

Food4Farmers:

Our initiative works with Food 4 Farmers! We donate 50 cents from each retail coffee bag sold in our shop, and 25 cents from each pound of coffee a wholesale partner purchases to our ‘you sip, we give’ initiative in support coffee farming communities and those who empower them. We’re proud to direct this support to Food 4 Farmers, through the implementation of programs to diversify income for coffee farmers and to help supplement the availability of healthy food year-round. F4F helps to sustain farming families in the thin months between harvests. Smallholder coffee farmers can face a lapse in steady income between the periods when they’re able to sell their crop. This lapse can lead to food insecurity and the inability to build savings to create a financial cushion and to expand their coffee production. F4F provides education and support on the local level to implement the farming of supplemental crops, honey, and helping create additional streams of revenue — these communities are able to access more food year round, as well as sell goods at local markets to bolster income.

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For more information, please reach out to wholesale@littleseed.coffee