To connect coffee lovers and professionals from all around the world, to inspire others, to make new friends.
Today we feature the story of :
CEDRO ALTO
Please tell us about yourself.
My name is Karl and I’m based in Colombia where I advocate for small coffee farmers and export green coffee for Cedro Alto, a collective group I founded in 2014 after dedicating several years prior to international trade and later rural development. For the last couple of years, I’ve also been trying to deepen the mainstream stakeholder analysis of the coffee supply chain through the lens of development economics, and sharing my findings through articles, videos, and soon to be published, my book: No Free Refills.
What is your vision and goal?
My personal goal is to demonstrate that supply chains can work in a collaborative way that ensures sustainability for its stakeholders, rather than the mercantilist, profit-maximizing way that the commercial relationships that make up supply chains are often considered today, which are frequently destructive to individual and community wellbeing and the environment. So, I’m starting with coffee.
Through the Cedro Alto coffee farmers’ collective, my goal is to empower small-scale farmers in isolated, marginalized areas to take control of their own supply chains, not by reinventing the wheel through inefficient micro-“direct trade”, but rather through collaboration and collective effort, and gain access to stable compensation based on the value they create.
How did you get started in coffee, what made you fallen in love with it?
I’ve come to enjoy the technical side of coffee, the complexity and infinite possibility, but I don’t fetishize it. I find it important because so many vulnerable individuals depend on it. What I like most about coffee is that it lends well to agroforestry systems which can be some of the lowest-impact agricultural land uses and still provide farmers with a sustainable livelihood if managed correctly.
If you weren't a coffee lover or professional what would you have done instead?
I think I would have enjoyed being an investigative journalist. I’ve realized I really like figuring things out and exposing truths.
What is your favourite coffee beverage ?
I learned to appreciate great coffee delivered by a cupping spoon, so have never really gotten into the gadgets and advanced techniques. I only really drink filter coffee. For me personally, it’s the rawest representation of the producer’s work.
What do you see as the major challenges facing the coffee industry?
Not limited to, but especially relevant to the coffee industry: The impact of irresponsible consumption on people and the environment, the lack of guilt transmitted to faraway buyers that has prevented greater motivation to support solutions, and the ease with which brands absolve themselves and their customers through smoke and mirrors. There is more interest than ever in sustainable sourcing, though, and hopefully supply chains are becoming more transparent thanks to communication technology, so there is hope that the conversation will continue to advance and that more nuanced standards of conduct will become mainstream.
One tip to improve the coffee industry ?
For coffee professionals to also read and learn outside of the niche coffee sector. The seemingly quotidian acts of buying, roasting, selling or serving coffee can touch many people in profound ways. There are complex power structures at work in the coffee supply chain that have been developing and evolving along with culture for centuries. The many layers must be understood in order to make appropriate and respectful decisions today.
Don’t for the least-common-denominator sustainability check-box required to stay in the market’s good graces. Buyer consciousness is deepening quickly and there will come a point where more careful business practices are required. Some will be on the right side of history. Some will have to embarrassingly catch up.
What is your favourite quote ?
“It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” -Neil Young
“No story lives unless someone wants to listen ”