At Andytown, we believe that we have the ability and the responsibility to use our economic impact for good. One of our goals in our coffee program is to achieve gender parity in our coffee partners, we aim to source the same volume of coffee from women and men. We believe that when you economically empower women, you can have a positive impact on the communities in which they live.
Reaching gender parity in coffee sourcing is not necessarily straight-forward. Although we are starting to see more farms owned and operated by women, the vast majority across the globe are male operated, and according to a 2018 report by the International Coffee Organization, up to 70% of the labor force is composed of women depending on the region. It’s important for us to source our coffees not just from women farmers, but from women owned businesses; in order for us to reach true gender equality in the coffee industry, we need to see women holding positions of leadership in different parts of the coffee supply chain.
The amount of women produced coffee we sourced in 2020 is almost double the amount we sourced in 2019!
When measuring gender parity in our coffee program we take into account both coffees that come from women farmers, and coffees that come from exporting businesses that are operated by women. In 2019, the total percentage of coffee we sourced from women was 23%. This percentage almost doubled to 39% in 2020. We sourced new women-produced coffees in 2020 and continue to work with some of the same women-produced coffees that we have been sourcing from over the years. This includes Catracha Coffee, Siruma Coffee, Mayan Harvest Coffee, and Kalsada Coffee.
Catracha Coffee, Honduras
Our partnership with Catracha Coffee is one of our longest standing here at Andytown. Mayra Orellana-Powell founded Catracha Coffee Company in 2010 to help family farmers in her hometown of Santa Elena, La Paz gain access to the specialty market. They support farmers through their profit sharing model. Farmers are paid more for their coffee, and are also given tools and resources so that they can make informed decisions on how to manage their farms and process their coffee. In 2011, Mayra was able to export lots from 13 smallholder coffee producers. That number rose to over 60 producers in 2016, and now, they’re inching closer and closer to working with 100 producers. Any grower who works with Catracha also receives technical assistance. We have been purchasing Maria Adela’s coffee every year since working with Catracha Coffee, and under their guidance, her farm and her coffees have improved over the years, and is now serving as one of the model farms at Catracha Coffee.
Jiny, Azarael, and their mother Gladys are a part of Catracha Collectivo. Some of the materials they use include coffee parchment and traditional handmade cloth by Lenca people—the largest indigenous group remaining in Honduras—as seen on the keychains and bags pictured. They like using traditional cloth because it is a way for them to reclaim their heritage and bridge their old and new cultures together. Jiny and Azarael hope that they can one day build a business for their crafts. This photo was taken in 2019 during our first visit to Santa Elena.
Mayra is a firm believer that real change in coffee producing regions comes from the farmers who make an impact in their community. She and her husband Lowell moved back to Santa Elena in 2017 to continue their efforts and contribute more to the community. She started Catracha Community, a non-profit dedicated to long term opportunities for community members. Every year, they hold a conference for youth living in Santa Elena and nearby communities. Classes are taught by Honduran youth leaders and are designed to teach youth about entrepreneurship. She also started Catracha Collectivo, which facilitates various craft projects to help provide extra income for families.
Siruma Coffee, Colombia
Our coffee blends Wind & Sea and Shore Leave Hook both include coffee from Colombia, and this component makes up approximately 25% of the coffees we roast each week. In the middle of 2019, we started sourcing this Colombian component from Siruma Coffee, founded by Valentina Duque. This was a pretty big shift for us. In a male-dominated industry it can be challenging to source coffees from large scale producers that are quality-focused and are not run by men. Although the coffee industry in Colombia is slowly changing, machismo is still present. She has often been asked, “Where’s your boss?” as if expecting a man, but often leaves the inquiring party in shock and embarrassment when she says, “I’m the owner.”
The Colombia component contributes to the creaminess and milk chocolate flavors of Wind & Sea.
In Shore Leave Hook, the Colombia component contributes to mild citric acidity of this coffee.
Siruma Coffee aims to showcase smallholder Colombian growers. They partner with individual farmers and regional cooperatives and push the bar in quality through producer level investments. They also partner with growers in post-conflict areas. The coffee used in our blends come from the San Lorenzo indigenous producer group, based in the Rio Sucio municipality of Caldas. Until recently, the region was heavily inhabited by FARC, ELN, paramilitary groups and guerrillas. The region was not previously known for specialty production, but as local tensions have eased and travel to the area made more accessible, it’s now possible to demonstrate the quality of the coffees available.
Mayan Harvest, Mexico
We began working with Rosalba Cifuentes Tovia of Mayan Harvest Coffee in 2018. She began her exporting company only a few years prior, shipping one container of coffee on her own, and knocking door to door asking for roasters to try coffee from her hometown of Bella Vista, Chiapas. The first year was incredibly difficult. By the time her coffee arrived, most roasteries had already purchased what they needed. But instead of calling it quits, she doubled the amount of coffees she exported the following year! Rosalba’s sheer grit and determination to showcase the quality of Bella Vista coffee has lead to her exporting several containers of coffee around the world in 2020!
Mayan Harvest pays farmers more than other local green buyers that would come to the region, but had strict guidelines for accepting quality coffees. She was initially met with skepticism. For some, Rosalba's QC practices seemed unreasonable and many did not want to work with her simply because she's a woman. However, as farmers have received appropriate prices for their coffees and have grown and gained success alongside Mayan Harvest, more and more farmers have opened up and want to sell their coffee to her.
Visiting the El Progresso Chapter of the Mayan Harvest Womens’s Group in early 2020
Women are often overshadowed or silenced by their husbands in Bella Vista, and as a way to uplift women coffee producers, Rosalba started the Bella Vista Women’s Group. The group is broken up into chapters based on region, where each chapter votes for their own leader. The chapters meet monthly to discuss best practices in farm management and potentially other craft projects they can do for additional income. The women producers have consistently produced higher quality coffee—overall, their practices in farming, picking, and sorting are much more attuned. Rosalba offers the women higher prices for their higher quality coffee, not only because it is deserved, but also as a way to show the community that women are more than capable to do excellent work. On top of their responsibilities caring for the household, they are still producing high quality beans!
Coffees from Bella Vista have been a crowd pleaser at Andytown. We have been purchasing the community lot since the beginning of our partnership, and started our first purchase of the Women’s Group coffee last year. We also purchase extra coffee from the community lot, and serve it as our only decaf option after sending it to Swiss Water for decaffeination.
Bella Vista was the last coffee community we visited prior to the pandemic lockdown. To learn more about our visit in 2020, you can read our 5 part blog series starting here: https://www.andytownsf.com/andytown-blog/2020/5/26/building-partnerships-a-reflection-on-our-trip-to-mayan-harvest-in-bella-vista-mexico
Kalsada Coffee, Philippines
There are different ways in which we go about purchasing green coffee. We rely on our partner importers to see what they have in stock, and we also continue to build on relationships with our exporting partners. Although we’ve been working with Kalsada Coffee since 2018, one of the main reasons we purchased their coffee is because our customers wanted it. Kalsada Founder Carmel Laurino visited Andytown after she and other Philippine specialty coffee supporters ran their first booth the Annual SCA Coffee Expo, and she put together a presentation on Kalsada Coffee, discussing what they were doing to support Philippine coffee producers and elevate coffee quality. This was a public event that filled up our cupping room, but for those who were unable to make it, we shared what we learned with our customers via social media. When we asked if customers wanted to see Philippine coffee on our shelves, the answer was a resounding yes!
Sorting green coffee from the 2020-2021 at Sitio Belis, the first mill built by Kalsada Coffee. The Kalsada Leadership team and majority of contributing farmers are comprised women. Sorting is mostly done by women, too. Tere, Country Director, has an incredibly strict QC protocol. Although time consuming, they only have to sort the coffee once, and result with astonishingly clean coffees.
In the Philippines, gender biases haven’t really come into play as an obstacle. There are women in leadership positions in the Philippine Coffee Board, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Trade and Industry. Kalsada Coffee is led by a majority women leadership team, and in Benguet, Cordillera Region where three Kalsada Mills are based, most of the farmers that Kalsada works with are married women whose husbands are also farmers. Women farmers, for the most part, handle the business as well and make up the vast majority of people who attend meetings to discuss concerns about quality and pricing.
For Carmel, the number of women that shape the Kalsada team as well as the number that are producers speaks to why women should be in leadership roles—when given the opportunity, women tend to be the first to step up and get things done!
Looking to the Future
We’re excited about our partnerships with Catracha, Siruma, Mayan Harvest, and Kalsada. As Andytown continues to grow, we hope to increase our purchases from them, and also source more coffees from women and non-cis men. Currently, about half of the coffees we offer on our menu are from women producers. Be sure to check them out!
