Today marks a pretty big moment in the history of Cafe Imports. Cafe Imports is now 100% employee owned.
For more than three decades, we’ve grown around a relatively simple idea: find exceptional coffees, know where they come from, build meaningful and lasting relationships with the people who produce them, and connect those coffees and stories with roasters who care about them as much as we do.
A lot has changed since 1993.
What began with a container of coffee from Brazil and a tiny warehouse on East Hennepin in Minneapolis has grown into an international specialty coffee company working across dozens of origins and with roasters around the world.
But the things that matter most to us have stayed remarkably consistent.
Great coffee. The people behind it. Long-term relationships. Education. Curiosity. Remarkable customer service. And trying to do business in a way that leaves coffee a little better than we found it.
Our mission developed around Increase, Decrease, and Share: increasing quality of life for those involved in coffee, decreasing our environmental impact, and sharing our knowledge and passion through education and example.
In 2023, becoming a Certified B Corporation gave us another way to put structure and accountability around many of those commitments and now, we’re taking another pretty exciting step.
Cafe Imports has transitioned to 100% employee ownership through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP.
As Andrew put it:
“As I thought about what Cafe Imports has become, what has made us successful, and what I wanted to protect for the future, employee ownership was the option that simply made the most sense.”
Becoming employee-owned doesn’t mean changing what Cafe Imports is. In fact, that’s kind of the point.
It gives us a way to keep moving forward as the Cafe Imports that got us here in the first place: independent, curious, progressive, and full of people who care deeply about specialty coffee and the communities around it.
Our focus remains on exceptional coffees and the remarkable people behind them.
Andrew said it best:
“Employee ownership allows us to preserve that independence, support the long-term future of the company, and continue investing in the people and relationships that have shaped who we are. I am incredibly proud to hand the keys over to the folks who helped build this company and will carry it forward.”
Cafe Imports is the result of thousands of relationships built over more than three decades: with coffee producers, exporters, suppliers, roasters, customers, educators, partners, and the people who have worked here along the way.
Employee ownership gives us a way to protect what we’ve built while making room for the next generation of Cafe Imports to help shape what it becomes.
We’re incredibly proud of where we’ve been and we’re pretty excited about where we’re going.
We are 100% employee-owned.
We are independently owned.
And we’re still very much Cafe Imports.
Here’s to the next chapter.
This one is ours.
