Wildflyer Coffee is a Twin Cities–based not-for-profit that aims to break the cycle of youth homelessness and housing instability through life skills and job training programs via their cafés in Minneapolis and St. Paul. We’re proud to partner with them through our Progress Projects the past couple of years. Learn more about their work here.
When we begin assembling our Progress Report each year, it typically begins not with spreadsheets or marketing materials, but with open conversations about what worked, how it was meaningful, did it further our core values to increase, decrease, and share (you can read more about those here), and where we feel like we could improve. It’s a process of reflection as much as it is crunching data.
Each year, we set ourselves an objective to do the most good we can, as close to home as we can, be that near our offices or the places and people we source coffee with. That’s where Progress Projects come in. We commit 1% of net profit to community-focused organizations chosen by the people who know those places best, our own teammates. Learn more about the amazing organizations we’ve gotten to know this year.
As part of our Progress Projects, we were able to support the NPLSF through their Lake Superior podcast. We chatted with Cafe Imports founder and NPLSF board member Andrew Miller on why this project is important to us.
Each year, Cafe Imports is committed to donating 1% of global net profits to community-oriented causes. Whether it’s a cafe opening their doors to provide hospitality training and a safe space, critical healthcare for those that need it, food and shelter for the most vulnerable, supporting native and Indigenous leadership, or simply taking care of our woodland friends, learn more about the amazing organizations our team has been able to show support for this year.
A group of seven producers formed FUDAM in 2000 to protect and spread environmentally conscious farming. Learn more about the association’s history and work with two new videos interviewing founding member Raquel Lasso Muñoz.
We’re excited to announce that Cafe Imports is now certified to sell Smithsonian Bird Friendly coffees, produced by farmers committed to conserving the habitats of around 200 species of migratory songbirds.
Fairtrade International is raising the floor price for Arabica coffees for the first time in over a decade to combat the economic instability that producers face.
An amendment to the 2023 Farm Bill could speed up research of coffee disease resistance.
The mid-to-late 2000s saw the emergence of “direct trade” as coffee-sourcing concept that was designed to be something of an evolution of the certification programs that already existed in coffee at that time, specifically Fair Trade/Fairtrade. The benefits of those certifications seemed evident—organic certs provide environmental protection, Fair Trade provides financial protection—but lacked a component that was especially significant to specialty-coffee companies: cup quality.
This fourth post covers the Non-GMO Project Verified Product certification. While this is not a common certification for coffee products, Cafe Imports has held Non-GMO Project certification since 2016 and we thought it might be valuable to share our reasoning and the requirements for this particular mark.
In the third post of this series, we’ll take a close look at Rainforest Alliance (also known as Rainforest Alliance/UTZ or RFA/UTZ) certification, so you can explore the holistic nature of this program and its in-depth look at the environmental, social, and economic conditions coffee farmers face.
In the second post of this series, we’ll explore what “Fair Trade” means around the world, the potential benefits and drawbacks, and how to become certified.
If you’re curious about certifications, this series is for you: Over the course of several blog posts, we’ll explore some of the existing certifications that are available for specialty green coffee, including taking a look at their mission, standards, and whatever auditing or other requirements are important for you to know.
