What's in a name?

At times..everything..

Cooperative Coffees is a unique organization - a green coffee importing cooperative committed to supporting and partnering with small-scale coffee farmers and their exporting cooperatives. By importing directly from our partner-farmers, Cooperative Coffees seeks to creatively foster a more equitable and sustainable system of coffee trade that directly benefits these farmers, their families and their communities.

Never doubt that a small, thoughtful group of citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has…
-- Margaret Mead

Organized in 1999, Cooperative Coffees is owned and managed collectively by a small group of specialty coffee roasters located throughout the United States. These roasters share a common interest and concern that each has addressed individually - the desire to source sustainably grown coffees and to work closely with the farmers growing it. These roasters know that by working together, cooperatively, they can more readily impact and multiply the positive effects of their selective coffee purchasing.

By evaluating and comparing our current sources of raw green coffee and combining our purchasing needs, the roaster-owners determined that we could successfully launch our own importing organization and purchase directly from 10 or more small farmer cooperatives in 6 producing countries. Cooperative Coffees was born!

Why a Cooperative?

Cooperative Coffees belongs to the people who use it - the roasters. The roaster-owners share equally in the control of Cooperative Coffees -- investing in shares in the business to provide financial capital, providing a partial guarantee of the cooperative's line of credit and committing to purchase a portion of their green coffee from the cooperative. The roaster-owners elect our own directors and management, decide which coffee producing countries and farmers we will work with, and determine with input from the farmers what we will pay for specialty green coffees.

Cooperative Coffees, like many cooperatives, is structured to operate at or near the cost of operations. If net profits are realized, these earnings are returned to roaster-owners based on their volume of purchases in the form of additional equity or a cash dividend.

Specialty coffee roasters formed and own this cooperative in order to work together -- sharing knowledge, lending expertise and taking advantage of our combined purchasing power. An old idea, an old commodity, and a new concept creatively combined to impact the industry and producers, cooperatively.

Who produces the beans?

Cooperative Coffees works directly with small-scale farmer cooperatives in growing countries around the world. These cooperatives must be farmer-owned, democratically managed and must demonstrate their ability to produce and deliver exceptional specialty coffee.

Some of our partner cooperatives have directly supplied the specialty industry for many years, others have a long history of production but are new to direct exportation of their product. Cooperative Coffees is committed to helping these cooperatives participate directly in and benefit from the often confusing world of international trade.

The combined expertise of these producer-growers and our roaster-owners allows Cooperative Coffees to offer the highest quality coffees from these small farmer groups while directly supporting our shared social and environmental philosophies. By trading directly with the farmers, Cooperative Coffees can pay premium prices to the farmers and still offer competitive prices to the roaster-owners.