The first version of this text on what we understand by sustainability dates from 2019. It was time to revise it. And this second version will not stand here forever either. We are constantly learning and incorporating our knowledge into our actions, so that today we have developed an increasingly multifaceted understanding of topics that shape our thinking.
Sustainability and fairness are processes and not finite states.
Over the coming years, we will continue to refine our approaches, reflect on our actions again and again, and remain in this process.
Good coffee for everyone
Many follow us on social media and read our blogs. Others drink coffee at us in the href="https://www.cafe-fruehling.ch/"Café frühlinghref="https://www.cafe-fruehling.ch/" or at the href="/en/bahnhof"Kaffeemacher Cafe at Basel Stationhref="/en/bahnhof", come to href="/en/akademie"courseshref="/en/akademie" in Basel or Dinslaken, or href="/en/collections/kaffee"orderhref="/en/collections/kaffee" our coffee to their homes - we create different touchpoints, but work from the same underlying motivation that drives our company forward:
We want to make good coffee accessible to everyone, share our knowledge about the world of coffee, and provide new impulses to drive the industry forward.
In the following, we address various topics on how we understand, live, and cultivate sustainability at Kaffeemacher.
Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Our work and our commitment are fundamentally designed to be sustainable. Because we understand our work as long-term, social at its core, and we have codified this commitment and goal in the GmbH's articles and even in the commercial register.
We have dedicated ourselves to collaborative and cooperative activity along the coffee chain. From cultivation to cup, we promote knowledge exchange, transparency, and balance along the coffee value chain.
We make challenges visible, seek solutions for the industry, and contribute to a socio-ecological transformation.
We understand ourselves as a learning company that shares its acquired knowledge with the market. Concrete examples are our training for restaurateurs, roasteries, or baristas, as well as our articles and href="https://www.youtube.com/c/Kaffeemacher?app=desktop"videoshref="https://www.youtube.com/c/Kaffeemacher?app=desktop". We operate a coffee farm, cafés, and a roastery, and are therefore confronted with the real challenges of the coffee industry. Our perspective is thus informed by practical experience and serves as the engine for our work as well as the experiential basis for our decisions and recommendations.
Purpose-Driven
We are a purpose-driven company. This means that a goal stands at the center of our activities, not the generation of profit. We understand profit as a prerequisite for achieving corporate objectives. For this reason, profits in our company are not withdrawn but remain in the company and are reinvested in our social mission. Purpose is not a buzzword for us; it reflects our fundamental motivation and guiding principle for our founding.
The Team as Engine
Employees shape and develop Kaffeemacher from the inside with their ideas and visions. Our philosophy appeals to and attracts like-minded individuals; we support team members in realizing their potential and implementing their ideas. Our corporate philosophy allows for mistakes and sees them as opportunities for growth. Our collaboration is based on trust and enables each person to find their own path and continue developing in it.
Customers and Partner Companies as Part of the Community
Our customers are not only buyers of our products but also part of our coffee community. Primarily through our presence on various social media platforms and the sharing of knowledge about coffee, we have been able to steadily increase our visibility. We inform in live discussions about current developments in the coffee market, provide content on coffee-specific topics, and invite our customers to live Q&A sessions.
Partner companies are often partners and are appreciated as such. Whether it's in the purchase of green coffee or in the promotion and support of coffee farmers when it comes to new equipment - together we are stronger and can achieve more. Our goal is to find synergies and build on a network.
Social Responsibility
As our size and visibility grow, so does our social responsibility outside the coffee supply chain. We are aware of this, and as a still young company, we see development opportunities in this regard and want to form alliances beyond coffee in the future.
Regarding the environmental impacts of our company and its products, we are in the process of generating data and facts. We are already launching projects on waste avoidance and recycling, investing in research in this field, and constantly seeking more sustainable alternatives in packaging and accessories.
In Mexico at Rancho San Felipe, our partners who make the decaffeinated coffee for us.
Sustainable Green Coffee Sourcing
As a coffee company with our own roastery, we are aware of our role as a crucial link in the coffee chain. We have the selection of millions of green coffees but purchase only about 25 different green coffees per year.
We equate this selection with responsibility - since we have far more selection of different green coffees than our customers have of roasted coffee, we are in the position of a door opener and our decisions have great influence on the realities in the coffee-producing countries. This is a wonderful task that motivates us.
Because this responsibility contains an incredible number of possibilities to make the coffee chain progressively more sustainable. By turning toward the origin, where coffee comes from, in dialogue with producers, and through regular travels to coffee countries, we became aware of the enormous leverage we now have with our green coffee purchases. We purchase green coffee thoughtfully. Because including certain producers means excluding others. For this reason, we work in green coffee sourcing with partners who share our philosophies.
A fair price for coffee producers
Since we started as a roastery buying green coffee, we wanted to understand what a fair price for coffee producers is. So began our intensive learning years. We conducted conversations, wrote articles, and made href="/en/podcast"podcastshref="/en/podcast" about production costs, href="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/preistransparenz-kaffee"FOBhref="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/preistransparenz-kaffee", ex-farmgate prices, Fairtrade, and direct trade. Each of these concepts helped us sharpen our perspective while simultaneously asking the question: what if we didn't determine the price at all?
How can we naturally give price-setting into the hands of the producers?
They are independent entrepreneurs on equal footing, so why shouldn't those responsible for a product be the ones to set the prices?
To arrive at this actually self-evident way of trading requires transparency in the supply chain, direct contacts, and partners who are all pulling in the same direction. Today we only work with green coffee suppliers who share our ideals and have internalized transparent trading practices.
The prices of our green coffees are either set by the producers themselves, or we offer prices with our import partners that are significantly above local markets and include premiums for efforts in ecological production.
There is no single fair and just coffee price - these vary by context and season. Depending on weather patterns, foreign exchange rates, inflation, and economic shocks with global impact, we renegotiate prices year by year with our partners. The fluctuations are generally not very large but reflect reality. Two examples:
Apas, Brazil
The href="/en/products/apas"Apas Cooperativehref="/en/products/apas" orients itself toward the coffee exchange price, the so-called C-Price. This fluctuates seasonally. Apas applies a differential of 3.30 USD/kg to their organically produced coffee.
If the coffee price on the exchange is 5 USD/kg, Apas would charge 8.30 USD/kg. This is the strategy chosen by Apas.
Toca, Mexico
In the href="/en/collections/espresso/products/toca"Toca projecthref="/en/collections/espresso/products/toca" we work with Ensambles as export partners. The coffee price paid covers project costs, field staff, payments to coffee producers, and premiums to support the transition to biological-regenerative principles.
href="https://www.ensamblescafe.com/"Ensambleshref="https://www.ensamblescafe.com/" monitors the local market price, the so-called plaza, and makes a higher offer based on this, which is worthwhile for the producers.
In the year 22/23 we pay significantly above plaza, import twice as much as the previous year, guarantee premiums, and slowly build trust with producers to commit long-term to the project.
Being a partner, giving impulses, and initiating change
As a coffee company that buys green coffee and sells roasted coffee, we do a great balancing act: on one hand, we are deeply rooted in small-scale, subtropical agriculture; on the other hand, we deal with the precise positioning of roasted coffees in the end-consumer market. At these ends, and at every stage in between, we can provide impulses and bring about change.
- With the Apas Cooperative in Brazil, in 2022 we switched to organic coffee production and purchase almost their entire organic harvest.
- In the Toca project in Mexico, we guide an indigenous community toward organic coffee production and bring direct market access to a heavily marginalized region.
- Also in Mexico, with href="/en/collections/espresso/products/sueno"Rancho San Felipehref="/en/collections/espresso/products/sueno" we have established what is probably the most local decaffeinated coffee - within a radius of 80km, the coffee is grown, processed, decaffeinated chemical-free, and shipped.
- With href="/en/products/mamy-espresso"Macenta Beanshref="/en/products/mamy-espresso" in Guinea, we found partners who are making Robusta into specialty coffee while protecting the rainforest.
- And on href="/en/kaffeefarm"our farm in Nicaraguahref="/en/kaffeefarm" we experiment with various post-harvest processes, varieties, and shade trees to produce coffee as autonomously as possible from external influences.
Juan Boillat, roaster and barista. In the background: our Reicat catalyst, with which we clean exhaust air.
More ecological agriculture
An important pillar in this way of working is a clear focus on soil health. The better the soil, the more resilient the coffee plant. We support agricultural approaches that work regeneratively and understand coffee production holistically. This also includes the production of fertilizer by farmers themselves, which makes producers more independent of market fluctuations.
Especially micro-producers need a broad range of tools to respond to ongoing challenges in coffee cultivation. Whether organic, biodynamic, regenerative, or a mix of different approaches - we support anything that strengthens coffee producers and gives them agency.
We learn when we discuss href="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/coffea-futurica-podcast-fibl"soil erosion and fertilizer with FiBLhref="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/coffea-futurica-podcast-fibl", when agricultural consultants href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdVVNVsXB84"explain different types of compost to ushref="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdVVNVsXB84", when scientists href="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/kaffee-im-klimawandel"recommend agroforestry systemshref="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/kaffee-im-klimawandel", and when sustainability consultants from href="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/coffea-futurica-podcast-tchibo"large companies describe their strategieshref="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/coffea-futurica-podcast-tchibo" on how they plan to adapt coffee farms to climate change.
The solution approaches are complex and contextually different. Neither a single label nor a single form of agriculture can endure in a climate that is changing unpredictably and rapidly. Mixed approaches and flexibility are needed, which requires openness and curiosity, and these are the two virtues we want to commit ourselves to.
Ecological Footprint and Environmental Impact Points
Coffee companies are by definition globally active along the coffee chain. It is in the nature of things, for coffee is grown in the southern hemisphere, shipped here, roasted, and shipped out. The coffee bean connects not only worlds distant in content but also covers surprising distances in the process.
The ecological footprint of coffee is not undisputed - depending on the cultivation method, logistics efficiency, roasting method, preparation method, and ultimately the decision of whether, how much, and href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PuwyU5UXV4"what type of milkhref="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PuwyU5UXV4" goes into a coffee, coffee ranges from climate-neutral to climate-damaging. These variations are vast, and to analyze, calculate, understand, and derive action measures requires patience and energy that should flow into this analysis.
Since 2022, we have been working on calculators ourselves to calculate our ecological footprint - on the coffee farm, in the roastery, and in gastronomy. We work with consulting firms that verify our calculations and give us certainty that we are calculating correctly.
We do not strive to calculate individual products, business areas, or the entire company and then offset our emissions. We calculate so that we understand where we need to initiate reduction pathways, where we need to move which levers so that we not only emit less but also bring about positive change and, ideally, achieve a reduction effect.
With the href="/en/apas-kaffee"transition from conventional to organic coffee production at the Apas Cooperativehref="/en/apas-kaffee", we likely changed CO2 emissions at Apas in the single-digit percentage range (figures under review). In our internal calculations, it is even in the higher double-digit range.
By setting up the new href="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/entkoffeinierter-kaffee"decaf supply chain in the smallest radius in Mexicohref="/en/blogs/kaffeewissen/entkoffeinierter-kaffee", we were able to save more than 18,000 nautical miles of logistics compared to our previous decaffeinated coffee.
Through precise energy consumption measurements on espresso machines, we can give increasingly better recommendations on which machines perform in the most climate-friendly manner and which anachronistically chase the pure focus on 1960s espresso machine aesthetics.
Measure, measure, measure. We create knowledge about the efficiency and ecological footprint of machines and report on this in our tests.
New tasks through our own review
Through the self-imposed and increasingly thorough review of our actions along the entire coffee chain, we not only constantly discover new blind spots but also give ourselves new tasks on how we can improve existing practices.
How do we achieve the most ecological coffee packaging?
Which wood makes our tamper CO2-positive?
Which barista cloths protect water from microplastics?
Which type of milk has the shortest delivery route and the lowest footprint?
We do not experience this self-review as a burden but instead gain new enthusiasm for continuing to develop the company, seeing and seizing new opportunities, and thus helping to shape our collective future.
We cannot handle these new tasks alone and will therefore rely even more on partnerships and alliances to tackle complex projects and achieve overarching goals.
Sustainability in Gastronomy
As Kaffeemacher, we operate two cafés in Basel. Our goal is to create places and spaces that convey our love of coffee and invite relaxed lingering. Our two concepts, Café frühling in the Kleinbasel and the café on the Passerelle at Basel SBB Station, are both places where we can communicate our standards for coffee and food.
From the start, we have maintained a trusted relationship with our suppliers, pay attention to regionality, organic products, and preferentially source from small businesses or producers. Our baked goods come from the href="https://www.speisehaus.ch/"Vital Speisehaushref="https://www.speisehaus.ch/" organic bakery in Dornach, and our cow's milk comes from the Marchmatt organic farm in Reigoldswil. The two cafés are among the largest customers of our own roastery.
We co-founded the href="https://gutsch-drink.ch/"Swiss organic oat drink Gutschhref="https://gutsch-drink.ch/", are part of the cooperative, and serve as a distribution center for other gastronomic projects.
