There’s a lot more specialty coffee coming out of Rwanda these days, and there’s a lot to love about Rwandan coffee. 25% of Rwanda’s agricultural exports consist of coffee, and in recent years, the country has made substantial investments in specialty coffee infrastructure. As a result, numerous 90+ coffees are now coming out of the …
by Lindsey Berk, Operation Groundswell “Eating is an agricultural act.” —Wendell Berry, American novelist, activist, cultural critic, and farmer We seem to have forgotten that. At least, I had forgotten that until I left my corporate job and my NYC apartment in 2011 to begin a three-year journey around Latin America and Australia. Working …
Green Guide Module 3: Waste Reduction & Recycling Module 3 offers cafe owners offers cost-effective strategies to curb the amount of waste a cafe produces. Tips cover: performing a waste audit, developing a plan, engaging your staff in the effort, recycling, composting, and much more. Available as a PDF.
This article is SCAA Collaborative Content in partnership with UTZ Certified Climate change, without a doubt, is the elephant in the room when it comes to specialty coffee. Arabica beans, with the complex web of variables affecting their quality, are known to be the “canary in the coal mine” of the changing face of agriculture. …
by Carolyn Fairman, Chief of Staff, SCAA For years now, SCAA and its member organizations have been creating greater awareness about the issue of hunger. You might ask, “What does hunger have to do with coffee?” Unfortunately, the answer is “a lot.” 800 million people worldwide suffer from chronic hunger—and many of them are coffee …
by Tracy Ging, Director of Sustainability, S&D Coffee Sustainability is a tricky thing to define. Much the like the term “specialty,” the more you try to define it, the more elusive the concept becomes. I’d rather leave it open-ended, and make room for the possibility that even once the right words are found, there will still …
The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), the world’s coffee authority and largest coffee trade association, presents its 2014 Sustainability Award to Twin, a UK-based ethical trading organization, and collaborators for their project Congo Coffee Revival: Regenerating Communities by Linking Remote Farmers to Mainstream Markets. This annual award honors individuals, businesses and organizations in the …
by Kristina Morris Heredia, communications and marketing coordinator at Coffee Kids While this article is seemingly about five reasons your nonprofit should attend the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s annual Exposition, The Event, it really comes down to one reason: community. The Event is a wonderland of coffee paraphernalia, businesses, producers, connoisseurs, as well as …
by Kimberly Easson, JavaVentures In 2005, I was on the board of directors when SCAA became a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact and committed to being a partner in addressing some of the world’s thorniest global issues — food security, maternal health, climate change, education, and poverty alleviation. Whoa — who us? It’s kind …
by Rosemary Trent, executive director of Pueblo a Pueblo “Sustainability” is an interesting word, and one that is used all the time when we talk about the coffee industry. But, like many buzzwords, it means different things to different people. The dictionary defines sustainability as “the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting …