Calling ALL Southern Coffee Roasters!

“Our NOLA Coffee Festival event is built around serving the collective needs of the coffee companies in the deep south. We seek opportunities for shared coffee education programs.” Explains co-founder Jim Currie. “We have recognized a common need among our many smaller roasters in this region – for better education in green coffee and perhaps a better buying process. Our roaster steering committee has suggested that we form a coffee buyers co-op in New Orleans and include roasters from across the Gulf South. We are exploring how that joint group effort could benefit coffee roasters in our region.”

Three nationally recognized green coffee importers are being invited to host coffee tasting meetings in New Orleans. They will aggregate sales orders and combine them into one shipment to New Orleans. This will optimize shipping and reduce the per bag cost – this will be especially helpful for the small roasters who usually buy only a few bags each month.

“We are also exploring new and creative methods of storage and financing to help the smaller roasters,” Currie added. “It has been especially encouraging that several of the larger coffee companies are offering to help in this process. The co-op truly looks like a community-wide effort to collaborate rather than merely compete. We believe our role at NOLA Coffee Festival is to help development new coffee ideas and programs year-round, not just for a single weekend at an annual event. This coffee buyer co-op is a good example of our philosophical approach.”

An initial survey of coffee buying requests in circulating this week and the initial co-op coffee sampling/ordering meeting will occur in late June. Similar meetings will follow in 2023 and the co-op may elect to use these pilot experiences to further shape the green coffee buying program in 2024.

CONTACT:
Jim Currie

PHONE:
504-813-4656

EMAIL:
[email protected]