Direct Trade at Origin: Brewing Global Coffee Impact
September 23, 2025 (Published: September 22, 2025)
Every cup of Crimson Cup coffee begins with relationships — built over years, rooted in respect and sustained through long-term investments in coffee-growing communities.
Through our Friend2Farmer® and Focus on Good® initiatives, we’ve developed mutually beneficial trade partnerships that prioritize quality, community well-being and shared growth across the supply chain.
Currently, we maintain long-term relationships in Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Peru and Uganda. These relationships don’t happen behind a desk. Our team travels to each growing region — walking the farms, sharing meals, and building trust face-to-face with the growers and producers.
“By working with the producers who grow and process our coffee, we gain deeper insight into their challenges,” said Brandon Bir, director of sustainability. “As a result, we can support them in producing better coffee that commands a higher price.”
Building Community in Honduras
One of our most impactful investments is in Siguatepeque, Honduras. We began direct trade of coffee there in 2011. A few years later, we expanded our work through a collaboration with local nonprofit Serve Hope International.
Working with Serve Hope, we’ve:
- Built homes for coffee-growing families
- Provided clean water to thousands of households
- Supplied educational materials to local schools
- Supported a youth soccer academy in the region
In 2025 alone, this partnership helped fund three new homes and brought clean water access to more than 1,000 families. Some of our coffee shop partners even traveled with our team to help build a home for a coffee picker and his family.
“The Serve Hope partnership helps meet basic needs — housing, water, education — that create stability,” said coffee buyer Dave Eldridge. “That stability makes it possible for farmers and pickers to focus on producing better coffee and for reinvesting in their community.”
Read more about our latest sourcing trip to Siguatepeque, Honduras.
A Long-Term Commitment in Papua New Guinea
One of our most enduring sourcing relationships is with the AAK Cooperative in Papua New Guinea, which began a decade ago. This partnership started small but has grown into a model for how direct trade can lead to both better coffee and stronger communities.
Papua New Guinea presents unique challenges. Coffee often travels over 800 miles of rugged terrain to reach port, passing through remote areas where more than 600 languages are spoken. Infrastructure is limited, and market access can be inconsistent.
Despite these barriers, the AAK Co-op has steadily increased both quality and consistency — thanks to shared goals and long-term investment.
“As we’ve purchased more coffee, the co-op has expanded,” Eldridge said. “They’ve added new members, invested in training and infrastructure, and improved quality across the board. We’ve grown together — and that’s exactly what we want to see.”
Bir noted that they’ve even used contract premiums to build adult education programs and improve wet mill systems. “It’s not just about volume — it’s about helping a community thrive through better coffee.”
Supporting Innovation in Peru
In Peru, we partner with NARSA (Negociaciones Agroindustriales Arevalo S.A.), a cooperative founded in 1988 by Don Julio Abel Arevalo Tello.
NARSA helps small coffee and cacao farmers in Peru’s Central Highlands and Amazon regions access national and international markets. We have sourced multiple award-winning coffees through NARSA.
We’re proud to sponsor NARSA’s Coffee Innovation College in La Merced, which was certified as one of the first SCA Premier Training Campuses in Peru. Crimson Cup consulted on building and equipping the lab to SCA standards and contributed professional-grade grinders and other equipment.
“Our goal is to arm NARSA co-op members with the skills and tools they need to craft exceptional high-point coffees,” Bir said.
“NARSA is dedicated to the well-being of the local coffee-growing community,” Bir said. “This helps them push cup quality and crop health as a means to a more sustainable industry, which aligns with Crimson Cup’s commitment to quality and sustainability.”
Backing Bold Ideas at Origin: Uganda’s Coffee Yard
In Uganda, we source coffee from the Coffee Yard, where a local entrepreneur is improving wages and developing new processing methods.
“He’s creating his own systems and reinvesting in his community,” Bir said. “We’re not leading that — we’re supporting it. And that’s what this work should be about.”
Across all of our origin partnerships, our sourcing strategy can include:
- Long-term contracts
- Pre-harvest financing
- On-the-ground training and support
These strategies help protect both producers and coffeehouses from the volatility of the global coffee market. Stable pricing and secure sourcing mean more consistency and reliability across the entire supply chain.
Why Sustainability Matters
Coffee is nothing short of an agricultural miracle. Legend traces its discovery over a thousand years back to a young Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi, who noticed his goats dancing with unusual energy after eating the red fruit of a wild tree. When Kaldi tried the fruit himself, he too felt a rush of vitality. That kick of caffeine — combined with naturally occurring antioxidants — helped fuel centuries of culture and trade, spreading from the hillsides of Ethiopia to nearly every corner of the globe.
Today, coffee is the second-most traded commodity in the world, after oil. In the United States alone, more than 70% of adults drink coffee weekly, and nearly 80% of those start their day with a cup. Specialty coffee continues to rise in popularity, with nearly 60% of American coffee drinkers now choosing specialty options over conventional blends — a trend driven by both taste and values.
Coffee cherries don’t ripen all at once, which means they must be picked by hand at just the right moment. Growing demand, combined with the limited supply of top-quality beans, has created constant pricing pressure for farmers and roasters alike.
That’s why we believe helping farmers grow better coffee is one of the most powerful ways to win the coffee game — together. By supporting education, improving infrastructure and building long-term trade relationships, we’re creating a supply chain that delivers consistent quality, sustains producer livelihoods and strengthens the coffeehouses that serve our coffee.
“We believe good business can also do good,” Eldridge said. “We support long-term relationships because they lead to better coffee and better futures — for growers and for the shops that serve it.”
“Every time we invest in a community, we’re investing in quality,” Bir added. “And every time we improve quality, we increase what that farmer earns and what that coffee can do in the cup.”
Giving Back, One Bag at a Time
Giving back is one of Crimson Cup’s core values — and that commitment extends beyond origin. Through our Grounds for Hope initiative, we support people living with, through and beyond cancer, right here in our own community.
We roast three exclusive Grounds for Hope blends — Organic House, Organic Dark Roast and Organic Decaf — plus a rotating Seasonal Blend that celebrates the flavors of the holidays.
For every bag sold at Central Ohio Giant Eagle stores, $3 is donated to Cancer Support Community Central Ohio, helping provide free emotional support, education and hope to those affected by cancer and their loved ones.
Because just like the relationships we build at origin, our work is about more than coffee. It’s about people, purpose and the power of connection — from farm to cup and community to community.