Meet Pachamama Coffee Cooperative
By Lauren Taber, Pachamama Coffee Cooperative
Pachamama Coffee Cooperative started in 2001 with a few simple questions in mind: what would it look like to take Fair Trade a step further? How can coffee farmers be in direct relationship with end consumers in the United States?
We found that the answer was even simpler: cooperative ownership. Pachamama Coffee has been 100% farmer-owned since day one, and is currently owned by 140,000 small scale family farmers across the coffee producing regions of the world.
When farmers stand behind the farming, roasting, marketing, and distribution of the coffee they bring to us, they maintain control of their destiny. On average, our customers paid almost $12 per pound to coffee farmers in 2017 — that’s 6 times more than the Fair Trade minimum price.
As a function of our cooperative structure, Pachamama is also democratically controlled by farmers - our Board of Directors is comprised of representatives from our member cooperatives in Nicaragua, Peru, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Guatemala. This gives coffee producers complete control of every step of the supply chain - from farming and roasting, to decisions about packaging and cafe operations. This novel iteration of vertical integration gives a fresh take on how to ensure equity in an industry that relies completely on peoples and nations that have historically been denied any form of clout.
“For us, Pachamama Coffee Cooperative represents our dreams of serving you our best coffee, freshly-roasted in the United States,” shares Merling Preza, the President of our Board of Directors and representative of PRODECOOP in Nicaragua. “When we started with Fair Trade 25 years ago, it was our ultimate dream to roast and brand our coffee, selling it as a value-added product. For our small farmers, the Pachamama model is an evolution born from necessity and a strong determination to stay on the farm.”
More than that, explains Merling, it is an investment that the farmers are empowered to make in their own future. When farmers own the company, they are not under the pressure of a volatile green coffee price index, and are therefore empowered to produce coffee with more care. 100% of the coffee Pachamama roasts is organic and shade grown, which means that we are not only socially sustainable, but environmentally just as well.
We are honored to operate our business guided by the 7 Cooperative Principles, which we view in the context of prioritizing producers. At every step, we seek to build them up and acquaint our customers with the farmers that are responsible for bringing them world class coffee. Being a co-op makes this possible - we are able to showcase our producer representatives in the boardroom, and tell the stories of the farmers that control the equity of our operations. We believe that, in order to bridge the gap between farmers and consumers in the coffee supply chain, a cooperative approach is necessary.
Pachamama has experienced steady growth since its inception. We now have in-house roasting and wholesale and retail distribution operations at our Midtown Sacramento location, in addition to two coffeebars in Sacramento and a weekly presence at the Farmer’s Market in Davis, CA. Our farmer-owners continue to provide organic coffee whose quality is recognized not only by excellent organizations such as the Good Food Awards, but by daily consumers across the U.S. as well.
More Co-op News
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For the month of November, we are once again teaming up with Smart Chicken® for the Smart Chicken® Smart Giving program.
Here’s how it works.
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By Laura Pfister, Media Coordinator
October is National Co-op Month, so what’s the big deal? Being a co-op is special. Yes, we know we are biased, but being a cooperative enterprise means we do business differently. We don’t have a single owner living on their private island drinking margaritas all day without a care in the world. We are owned and governed by you, our 10,000 members. We share the burden in hard times and share the benefits in the good times. We put people, the planet and our principles before profit.
From the General Manager's Desk
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With all the local products that we offer, it’s hard to pick a favorite. But that’s exactly what we asked our staff to do. Here are some of their go-to local eats.
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How often can you browse the shelf at your neighborhood grocery store, see a bottle of hand crafted, local cider and say, “Hey, I help make that!” Well, at the Co-op you can.
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By Laura Pfister, Media Coordinator
Many of us wait all year for this moment. We spend the winter months dreaming of a certain fuzzy stone fruit, its sweet juices dripping from our face and the buttery golden pie crust those yellow-orange slices will inhabit.
Good news! The wait is over. That local, sweet orb of sunshine has finally arrived. That’s right. Rolling Hills peaches are here!
2017 Board Election Results
We're Sustainability Stars!
Deep in our hearts we've always known we were sustainability stars, but now we have an award to prove it.
We recently received a Co+efficient Sustainability Star award from National Co-op Grocers (NCG) recognizing our positive environmental and community impacts.
Co+efficient, NCG’s sustainability program, measures social, environmental and local economic impacts from participating food co-ops across the country.
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Dine In and Bike Your Way to Savings
Did you know that approximately half of our landfill waste stream is composed of Deli trash? A significant part of that is “to-go” containers, which are sometimes used for dining in and don’t end up “going” very far at all.
Sustainability matters in everyday actions and we want you, our customers, to help us reduce unnecessary waste and make the most ecologically sound choices possible.
Participate in YOUR Co-op!
Spring Picks
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By Laura Pfister, Media Coordinator
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A New Look
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For 45 years we’ve been loving local and fostering community. Throughout our almost half a century history, our identity and logo has gone through many iterations.
Some of you might remember the logo above from our newsletter in the early 1980s.
As we’ve done multiple times throughout our history, it’s time to refresh our brand and launch a beautiful, new logo to take us into the next decade.
Turkey and Sweet Potato Chili
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