Crowdfunding For Coffee Growers
Tom Booth from Kallisti Coffee gives us and update from Algrano and how they have just launched a new campaign to get new sample roasters to coffee farmers around the world.
Last week, Algrano made the statement:
Today we need your help to change coffee growers lives.
With you, we want to change the unequal access to technology. Let’s empower growers to roast samples at the farm, engage with roasters in conversation around quality and its development and learn from direct market feedback in order to improve the quality of their coffee and their lives.
Together with IKAWA, we are inviting you to join this crowdfunding to provide a selection of promising coffee growers with an IKAWA V3 Pro Sample Roaster. Let's make quality the common language in the coffee trade!
Wow! This shook the social media world with retweets from both coffee industry leaders such as Sonja Björk Grant and the talk of industry press such as Daily Coffee News. The modest target of $20,000 USD hit 25% in the first couple of days and will run to the end of February.
So, what is it all about?
The Ikawa sample roaster roasts green coffee and uses technology so roast profiles can be shared. For the first time in history, roasters are able to send farmers the exact profile they would use in their cupping lab via e-mail or whatsapp and then both farmer and roaster can cup the same coffee, roasted the same way. This 2 way communication is incredibly important and allows learning on both sides so producers and roasters can really work together from the farm through to the final cup.
It helps the producer taste the coffee in the exact way the roaster they are working with and it encourages more open 2 way communication. A conversation around quality starts with understanding differences in taste profiles and requires a consistent roast of green beans. Unfortunately, most coffee growers do not have access to roasting devices and depend on costly quality laboratories hours away from the farm. Fast learning cycles and consistency are lost.
To begin, 3 producers are already selected to receive the roasters. The aim would be for this project to grow, more producers be able to receive roasters and then farmers can also talk to each other on their roast profiles and how they find the last step in the coffee process effects their coffee. The first producer, Norcafe in Peru is a young group of 3rd generation farmers really changing the way they work together with roasters. Nixer the cooperative manager will be travelling to Europe with some of his producers to meet roasters in the UK in March & April, if you would like to meet him they will present at the Ikawa office in London on 31st March.
As a thank you from Algrano, all contributors to the crowdfunding will enter a raffle for one bag of Ethiopian micro-lot green coffee. The coffee, from the Yirgacheffe Union, will be from the fresh #EthiopianDiscoveries???? crop and be delivered to your doorstep. If you want to participate without contributing
Please visit and share the page to learn more about this crowdfunding initiative and how we want to further enhance the dialogue around quality between growers and roasters.
For more information:
