Beyond Empowerment: How to Provide Real Certainty in the Coffee Supply Chain
“Support farmers.” “Empower producers.”
Let’s start by stating that I do not like the semantics of these phrases, the way we pop up this question, so habitually. If we don’t pay attention to the semantics, we see no problem. We assume that one part of the chain is weaker and needs assistance and support, and another is stronger, and can provide it, as a part of a deal, as how things are.
The first phrase means that there is by definition the “weak” and the “strong” element. The second phrase means someone has taken the power and now is giving it back, but can take it away anytime.
The Reality of a Sustainable Coffee Chain
But let’s drop this for a moment, and make a full circle. In a healthy business, a healthy chain, the risk is distributed the way that all of the participants are carrying a little bit of it, and it is being diminished. This is the way the chain supports itself, and can carry on (aka is sustainable). Not that one part of the chain is “helping” the other—no, it assumes the whole industry is of their interest, and the problems at every segment is their problem.
So, the first thing to do is to drop the whole idea of “helping farmers.” Unless you are a huge company that can secure huge contracts at attractive prices for many years to come, for many years to come. Which is a substantial help.
When you get rid of the idea of “helping the weak,” and the rest of the colonial stuff, you are ready to go to work and do your part. Which means identifying risks and problems of the industry and doing your part in mitigating or dealing with them.
The Industry’s Biggest Risk: Uncertainty
If we are going to ask any participant of the coffee chain what the biggest risk is, the vast majority will say one word: “Uncertainty.” Weather (climate change), C-Market (coffee prices fluctuations), Politics, Labour, etc etc. We are forced to plan, having no idea what exactly will happen. So if we are in it for a long run, we need to develop strategies for many possible outcomes. All of us are in the same boat, we hate uncertainty, we want to know for sure what will happen to be ready.
So the thing is really simple. How to help farmers (aka how to help the whole coffee chain, because with no farmers growing coffee there is no coffee) - provide certainty. ## Specialty Coffee is Suffering from Its Own Marketing
Specialty Coffee is Suffering from Its Own Marketing
And that’s where things get interesting, and specialty coffee is suffering from its own marketing. As baristas we like certainty. We like to have a stable shift schedule, and a stable paycheck. As roasters we like certainty. We like to have regular customers, we like to have loyal customers, we like to have contracts, we like to know that every single month we will have a specific volume from this particular client. Does not matter if they are ordering an exciting and trending, or comforting and “basic” coffee - just the possibility to count with it gives us time to breath and plan.
When purchasing coffee though, many of us are not thinking in the same way (providing certainty to our partners). We are looking for exciting new lots, hunting for them, reluctant to book, always waiting for the best price, or something better to appear at the horizon, so we can drop the booking.
We like others to provide the certainty for us, but we are not doing it with our partners.
Actions Speak Louder Than Instagram Posts
Our actions go a long way, and we are all connected, does not matter if you are talking or not about “helping farmers” - the way you book your coffee, the way you buy and plan your coffee says a lot about it. I would say, that’s the first thing to pay attention to. Not the instagram posts with the smiling farmers, not the shiny stories of visiting the plantations, not the cupping table reports.
How much certainty are you providing for your closest partners (who directly depend on you, and who you depend on)?
And how you can provide even more certainty. How can you make your partners feel they can count on you? And it applies to every participant of the industry, no matter how small.
How can I make sure my partner knows I value them and won’t drop them? That’s the first thought.
Seeing the Chain as Interconnected
The second thought. Coffee industry is big, complex and interconnected. Since the pandemic, we learned it pretty well - we had a very good example of how one difficulty in the supply chain can influence the whole industry (right now I am talking about the shortage of the containers).
In my opinion, it is crucial for us, as participants of the chain, to start learning about it, and drop the idea that we function in isolation. I do not say all of us need to know how the C-market or shipping coffee works in detail - but we need to have an idea.
How does it help farmers, you will ask. Well, we won’t see problems as “their” problems or “our” problems.
Ideally we will start seeing them as part of the industry situation, and our brain will start working asking 2 questions:
Who the problem will affect first?
How the problem will affect you, and how you can provide more certainty to your partners?
And I specifically say “your partners”—not something far far away, a hypothetical farmer in a hypothetical coffee producing country—but real existing partners in the coffee chain. Your importer, your client, your employee, your employer, the farm you have been working with.
Shifting from Theoretical to Practical
This way something interesting will potentially happen. Big fat unsolvable problems will stop being theoretical, and start being seen as situations to deal with.
Drought in Brazil? Potentially lower quality crop? How can I provide more stability?
High C-market price? How can I provide more stability?
Low C-market price? How can I provide more stability?
Climate change and need for planting hybrids? How can I provide more stability?
Suddenly every problem touches you, and suddenly you can do something.
But we are talking about farmers, right? Helping farmers? Stability. Provide stability first. And then drop the idea of empowering, and treat every partner in a coffee chain as a business partner. You do not need to empower your business partner. You want him to prosper.
