A managing partner at Mighty Peace Coffee, Jim Ngokwey is creating pathways for Congolese coffee growers and posing difficult questions about the future of the industry.
wrt ‘sustainability’ and ‘ethics’ I was struck (as I often am) by the similarities between coffee, with much artisanal production, and other products (at one point Jim makes a brief reference to avocados, but notes it could be other stuff as well)
Ashley, you raise a key issue here about supply chains, about the number of hands who touch the product between farmer and barista/coffee shop: ‘...there are at least 27 stakeholders scattered around the coffee supply stream. And before I started recording with you, I laid out for you what I thought the supply chain looked like when I was a barista: You have this idea that coffee grows in coffee-growing countries, an importer brings that coffee to a coffee-consuming country, a roaster buys that coffee, and a barista makes it—that's what? Four people in there? But no, 27. Those are 27 people that need to get paid. Those are 27 people, or 27 actors, maybe even more [people], that are either extracting value or—I guess [they’re all] extracting value, the only people that are actually putting value in is the farmer. I don't know, that's controversial, but let's get past that. But the idea is that all those people have different amounts of … I'm not sure what the right word is—I guess power is kind of the right word, but power over what that system looks like.’
I know I have made the comparison before, but can’t help myself: this could easily be a description of seafood supply chains, posing the same problems of power and responsibility :)
another great interview, very revealing --
wrt ‘sustainability’ and ‘ethics’ I was struck (as I often am) by the similarities between coffee, with much artisanal production, and other products (at one point Jim makes a brief reference to avocados, but notes it could be other stuff as well)
Ashley, you raise a key issue here about supply chains, about the number of hands who touch the product between farmer and barista/coffee shop: ‘...there are at least 27 stakeholders scattered around the coffee supply stream. And before I started recording with you, I laid out for you what I thought the supply chain looked like when I was a barista: You have this idea that coffee grows in coffee-growing countries, an importer brings that coffee to a coffee-consuming country, a roaster buys that coffee, and a barista makes it—that's what? Four people in there? But no, 27. Those are 27 people that need to get paid. Those are 27 people, or 27 actors, maybe even more [people], that are either extracting value or—I guess [they’re all] extracting value, the only people that are actually putting value in is the farmer. I don't know, that's controversial, but let's get past that. But the idea is that all those people have different amounts of … I'm not sure what the right word is—I guess power is kind of the right word, but power over what that system looks like.’
I know I have made the comparison before, but can’t help myself: this could easily be a description of seafood supply chains, posing the same problems of power and responsibility :)