Direct Trade Coffee
Direct Trade Coffee
Direct trade coffee is the method Artisan Coffee Imports utilizes to connect craft roasters with their farmer partners in Ethiopia and Rwanda. With a direct trade coffee partnership, roasters can be confident in knowing they are working with farmers who are passionate about coffee and establishing relationships that continue long term.
Our direct trade coffee process ensures both the farmers and the roasters receive detailed information and feedback in both directions. Through these direct trade coffee partnerships, Artisan is able to ensure the direct coffee trade benefits on both sides, which enables long-term sustainability and market advantage for roasters.
Confidence in Direct Trade Coffee
We are transparent from the beginning conversation and throughout the direct trade coffee buying process with both parties. Our roasters can be confident in knowing if they have a question for our farmers, we either have or can get them an answer through the direct trade coffee process. Roasters are looking for an open and communicative process, so we often are asked questions like, “how much did the farmer get paid?” or “what is the farmer’s cost of production?”
Direct Trade Coffee Processes
In our direct coffee trade process, we develop an information sheet with our farmers that highlights many of the roaster’s frequently asked questions. Our information sheets contain information on the story behind the farm, the history of exporting, the region, land size, flavor notes, and the make-up of the operation. Artisan is known for supporting women-owned and women-grown farms through the direct trade coffee process. We are proud of the impact our business has on both sides of the trade.
Direct Trade Coffee Connections
Through our direct trade coffee approach, we are able to directly connect farmers with the market and help to motivate farmers to produce more with fewer inputs and continue to source the valuable coffee resources responsibly. In the direct trade coffee process, Artisan provides education and support to the farmers – including “lean at origin” training to measure quality, understand pricing, and increasing throughput of the depulping machine, among others. Through the direct trade coffee process, Artisan also supports farmers with cost assessments to help measure and reduce costs throughout the harvesting process. At Artisan, we are motivated to rationalize costs to improve our ability to pay our farmers through direct trade for quality coffee. We further offer business planning to highlight profitability and scalability in our direct trade coffee farm partnerships.
Direct Trade Coffee Standards
In our direct trade coffee process, Artisan purchases the coffee resources directly from our farmers – guaranteeing price and demand in production for the farmer. This process ensures the farmer can sell more product through the direct contract, while Artisan can maintain an inventory of high quality coffee that meets sustainability and ownership standards for our roasters. Direct trade is transformative and leads to consistently high quality.