In recent decades, specialty coffee has experienced a revolution in postharvest processing. The speed of new method development is increasing as the success of honey and natural processes has spurred innovations like extended fermentation periods and carbonic maceration. This revolution brings opportunities for technological progress in processing and for leading processors to add value to their coffee, but it comes with a cost: confusion about what each processing method requires and which one is most suitable. How can individuals find their place in this industry-wide revolution? Though we don’t have a precise map, we can suggest a general methodology for orientation and navigation through these exciting, turbulent times.

Jorge Cuevas is the Chief Coffee Officer at Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers. He started his journey in coffee in the mid 1990s in his native Mexico as exports manager for coffee cooperatives in his adopted homeland of Oaxaca. Jorge is long time member of the Executive Committer at the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) and his experiences in coffee include production, processing, export, import, price risk management and final product development.

There is no doubt that we are living through a time of acceleration in the intensity and frequency of crises - climatic, political, market, and health. The ability to not only overcome the blows dealt by a crisis, but to emerge stronger, is becoming essential for rural agricultural enterprises and the coffee farming families they represent.

But what does it mean to be a resilient cooperative, and why is that resilience important to coffee value chains? Join Root Capital to hear about the organization's work to identify the key characteristics and capabilities that a cooperative must possess in order to be prepared to face unforeseen events, particularly climatic ones, and to learn how resilient organizations underpin a prosperous coffee value chain in which all actors manage their risk and improve their performance, benefiting everyone from producers to consumers.

Direct Trade has been Stumptown’s sourcing philosophy for nearly 20 years. During that time, we observed positive impacts of that model at coffee farm and community levels — but also recognized the limits of our own observations. In 2018 Stumptown got serious about measuring the impact of Direct Trade at origin, codifying our approach, and hiring third parties to conduct impact studies.

This presentation will delve into those studies by covering Stumptown’s Direct Trade sourcing principles, the company’s impact indicators, and the results of the independent research that shows positive results for producers and their communities around the world — along with consistently exquisite coffees.

Smallholder producers face formidable and unpredictable financial risks, particularly related to market prices. In this session, we'll discuss approaches that smallholder organizations,coffee buyers, lenders, and others can take to address smallholders' financial/market risk to improve smallholder resilience and incomes while securing reliable, quality supply for buyers. We'll hear from a lender, farmer support organization, donor and coffee buyer involved in this area.

When frost hit some of Brazil's major coffee-growing regions in July of 2021, the price for coffee on the commodity futures market - the "C" price - rose immediately and precipitously. Market actors everywhere tried to anticipate what the extent of the damage would be and how much of a supply shortage to anticipate in the coming months, and even a month later, the picture is still unclear. Anike Eljers Wolthers of Red Container Coffee will present an overview of these recent events and explain how the frost compounds the effects of a shortage in shipping containers and COVID-related slowdowns to create challenges that affect everyone involved in the green coffee business.

The green coffee trade (and the companies that have succeeded in it) is home to some of the richest history and the most valuable knowledge in the coffee industry. It's also opaque — the competition is fierce, the risks are great, and the profit margins are slim — and in the absence of good information, assumptions and distrust can take root. Amid a pandemic that has stymied in-person communication, a rally in the commodity futures market that follows some of the lowest prices in a generation, and a shipping container shortage troubling green coffee buyers and sellers around the world, there's a lot to discuss. There's also an urgency to achieving a shared understanding of the challenges and opportunities specialty coffee faces — in 2021 and beyond.

The landscape of specialty coffee consumption in the United States is a patchwork of many regional and cultural customs. Despite the challenges of categorising such a large and diverse market, one aspect that has been consistent across the country and its coffee-drinking subcultures is the precipitous rise in the number of micro-roasting companies in recent years.

The presentation will address how the Brazilian Instant Coffee Industry Association (ABICS), has been branding its products to appeal both to the different consumer segments; from quality to price-sensitive; from specialty to conventional; and to the supply chain that provides the products to them. ABICS’ goal is to increase Brazilian consumption and exports of instant coffee, and to add value to the product. A Sensory Analysis Methodology for Instant Coffee will be introduced as an instrument to create product differentiation and market value. Recent consumption and figures, including those during the COVID-19 pandemic, will be reviewed, as well as future trends and developments.

The growth of Korea’s specialty coffee market over the past decade has been a subject of much excitement – the country’s consumption has grown quickly in both volume and per capita terms, which leads many observers to wonder whether this rapid development would be possible in other markets. Is this a new normal? What lessons might the specialty coffee industry learn from Korea’s successes?

Specialty coffee consumption in the UK has been on the rise in recent years, and despite steady growth in the number of total cafés – including both chains and independent shops – demand for lower-grade instant coffee has been difficult to unseat. In addition to the changes wrought by COVID-19, Brexit offers its own set of challenges to businesses operating in the UK and those doing business with UK-based companies.

Europe's largest-volume importer of green coffee — because it re-exports a substantial portion of that volume as roasted coffee, anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of European specialty coffee markets should examine the country’s purchasing tendencies. The domestic market also warrants exploration, with its comparatively high proportion of in-home consumption of specialty coffee versus some of the other countries profiled in the first Green Coffee Summit.

In 2019 coffee prices reached 12 year lows and although the last year has seen a welcome reversal of this trend, producers need to find ways of improving their resilience to market forces beyond their control.

This presentation, based on a recent study into how East African producers could better position themselves to improve their returns from coffee, will look at the needs for capacity building in origin, the skill sets required for success, and the different value addition models that could better equip producers to improve their livelihoods