Like other coffee enthusiasts, I see many pleasures and benefits in drinking quality coffee. Now I can claim another one, although in this case it’s other people who benefit from this drinking habit.

I buy green (raw) coffee beans through an Australian website known as CoffeeSnobs, and roast them myself. Last year Andy Freeman, the guy who runs the site, started a scheme whereby fifty cents from every kilogram of beans sold goes into a fund he calls “Fair Crack”. The idea is that whenever enough money builds up, it is spent on projects which directly benefit small growers of specialty coffee.

It’s a way for coffee enthusiasts to give something back to the growers of the coffee, who only get a small cut of the final price and sometimes struggle to survive. CoffeeSnobs members have overwhelmingly embraced the idea.

One of the CoffeeSnobs pulpers will be used
in this building in Njari-Rononi, Tanzania.
Outside are some of the 68 coffee growers
who will use it. Photo: Bente Luther-Medoch.

The first project has recently been announced (full details here), and the beneficiaries are small coffee farmers near the southern slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Two villages will each be provided with a pulping machine - processing equipment they would probably not have been able to access otherwise. Shared by all the independant farmers in the area, these will enable them to take a superior grade of bean to market and receive a higher price. Scales and fermentation tanks are also being provided for communal use.

There are a number of things to like about this:

• Farmers should get a higher price for their beans, making their businesses more viable.
• 68 farmers will be helped by the pulper in one of the villages. This also benefits their families, and their communities.
• It contributes to the growth of the specialty coffee industry in Tanzania.
• Admin costs are zero: 100% of the funds hit the ground in Tanzania

Although the money comes from the purchases of CoffeeSnobs members, it is by no means a sacrifice:

• The contributions per kilo of beans are small change for us, and hardly noticed.
• Even with the contributions, buying green beans this way cost only about one quarter of the price of equivalent commercially roasted beans.
• We get to enjoy superb coffee, roasted just how we like it, as fresh as you can get.

It almost sounds too good to be true, but it IS true. It’s great to know that win-win situations like this can really happen. I’m also encouraged that the business world contains people like Andy Freeman of CoffeeSnobs, who not only runs an excellent business, but uses it to do something good for others.

By a small coincidence, I happened to be drinking a Tanzanian coffee when I read about this project to assist Tanzanian growers. My coffee was from a different area, but who knows - some day I might get to drink coffee which passed through the pulper my purchases helped (very slightly) to fund. The thought adds an extra level of enjoyment to my coffee drinking habit … and makes me want to buy more coffee.