Like Dan Chen, I also came to this documentary from a comment in a Vox video dated August 10, 2020 titled: ''The global coffee crisis is coming'' I watched your documentary about the coffee collective ASPROUNION with great interest. Towards the end of your documentary, a coffee farmer said that they aren't ''a commodity'', no. They are ''a community'' - I applauded when I heard that. Great project. How we can support ASPROUNION? Do you sell to a roaster in Canada where I live? Bravo! Félicitations! I'm all in favour of ensuring a fair price to the producers and it is beautiful to hear the members of the collective talk about the philosophy underpinning their development!
I don't believe ASPROUNION is supplying any roasters in Canada. Fortunately there are many other green bean suppliers and roasters that are working to improve this. Hopefully this film can inspire you to raise this issue with some roasters in your area and see how they're actively working to care for the community that makes up their supply chain!
Also came here from the Vox documentary and super inspired to see this doc bringing light to this initiative/ solution for one of the many complexities of the coffee making and trade processes. On all these different ways and improvements then the whole system can be pushed towards shifting to a more sustainable one.
I understand that many companies treat farmers poorly and that many middlemen are employees of these companies, however I feel the real this documentary is a very simplistic view. There are many small green coffee businesses who do great work in Colombia and help innovate and improve coffee quality. The business of selling green coffee is difficult and margins are very small. In my opinion coffee roasters are the problem more so then the middleman. A coffee may cost the middle man $3 USD after milling and export cost will be another $1USD, so coffee lands for $4USD. The coffee roaster wants the coffee to be $4.5USD max, so the broker might make .50cents per kilo. The coffee roaster sells the same coffee roasted for $30/kilo. The middle man isn’t the main issue.
Hey Leo, You're right about the roasters being a problem, but I do think you let the middle men off the hook too easily and I promise you we don't have a "simplistic view" in fact I'm not sure if you've watched the film or just commented on the title. (?) We'll have a chat about our use of the phrase "middle men" and consider if we could use something more helpful. Coffee is complex and it's hard to cover everything in a 15 minute film. This is one of those business doing great work in Colombia and we wanted to share their story. Please don't write it off as simplistic because we couldn't cover the whole story and focused on the middle men. We hope that this film will get people to ask more questions of their roasters.
Nicholas Hind I definitely watched it all mate. It is beautifully made. This concept isn’t exactly new. Many middlemen/coffee Brokers began their businesses motivated by the same ideas you articulate here. Coffee in Colombia today is considered some of the most innovative and exciting. 15 years ago Colombia was just production/cheap blend coffee. Middlemen has a massive role in changing this. The average person walking into a cafe isn’t thinking at all about the farmer, all they care about is whether the aesthetics of a cafe suit them and that their latte tastes great. I guess my biggest problem with the main message in this documentary is that middlemen are a problem because they rip off farmers. When in reality it is big business that rips of farmers and roasters who set the prices they are willing to pay, and cafes who want $40,000 worth of equipment and a cheap KG price. The world is fake, everyone want to present a beautiful story and image of being ethical, sustainable, caring but behind the scenes they generally only care about the lower price.
@Leo I sincerely appreciate that you're taking the time to call out the missing pieces of information in this discussion. I completely agree with most of what you've said. And while I don't think it's accurate to describe the film as "very simplistic", you are correct in that it doesn't tell the whole story. I guess for me, the discussion has to start somewhere. Educating the average consumer about the producers encourages them to start holding the roasters and cafes to account and hopefully starts them doing more research. The fact is that every part of the supply chain (which is made up of people, including the big business) needs to improve. Here the focus is on the middle man because that is the reality for these farmers. This is their story. ASPROUNION was founded in 2001 so it's definitely not new. In fact, there are many medium and larger sized farms who co-operate and share/own a mill together but that this group of farmers working on lots less than 2 hectares where able to establish their own mill is remarkable.
Like Dan Chen, I also came to this documentary from a comment in a Vox video dated August 10, 2020 titled:
''The global coffee crisis is coming''
I watched your documentary about the coffee collective ASPROUNION with great interest. Towards the end of your documentary, a coffee farmer said that they aren't ''a commodity'', no. They are ''a community'' - I applauded when I heard that. Great project. How we can support ASPROUNION? Do you sell to a roaster in Canada where I live?
Bravo! Félicitations!
I'm all in favour of ensuring a fair price to the producers and it is beautiful to hear the members of the collective talk about the philosophy underpinning their development!
I don't believe ASPROUNION is supplying any roasters in Canada. Fortunately there are many other green bean suppliers and roasters that are working to improve this. Hopefully this film can inspire you to raise this issue with some roasters in your area and see how they're actively working to care for the community that makes up their supply chain!
Thank you this inspired me also about the coffee industry in my country
Also came here from the Vox documentary and super inspired to see this doc bringing light to this initiative/ solution for one of the many complexities of the coffee making and trade processes. On all these different ways and improvements then the whole system can be pushed towards shifting to a more sustainable one.
Beautifully filmed and important topic. Thanks for this gem :)
Came from Vox Coffee Crisis Video. Would be interested to hear more about how this is possible and how margins are sustainable from Farmer to Buyer.
Are you referring to the roaster with this question or another part of the supply chain?
this was filmed so well. what was this shot on in terms of camera and lens?
what the name of company here?
I understand that many companies treat farmers poorly and that many middlemen are employees of these companies, however I feel the real this documentary is a very simplistic view.
There are many small green coffee businesses who do great work in Colombia and help innovate and improve coffee quality. The business of selling green coffee is difficult and margins are very small. In my opinion coffee roasters are the problem more so then the middleman. A coffee may cost the middle man $3 USD after milling and export cost will be another $1USD, so coffee lands for $4USD. The coffee roaster wants the coffee to be $4.5USD max, so the broker might make .50cents per kilo. The coffee roaster sells the same coffee roasted for $30/kilo.
The middle man isn’t the main issue.
Hey Leo, You're right about the roasters being a problem, but I do think you let the middle men off the hook too easily and I promise you we don't have a "simplistic view" in fact I'm not sure if you've watched the film or just commented on the title. (?)
We'll have a chat about our use of the phrase "middle men" and consider if we could use something more helpful.
Coffee is complex and it's hard to cover everything in a 15 minute film. This is one of those business doing great work in Colombia and we wanted to share their story. Please don't write it off as simplistic because we couldn't cover the whole story and focused on the middle men. We hope that this film will get people to ask more questions of their roasters.
Nicholas Hind I definitely watched it all mate. It is beautifully made. This concept isn’t exactly new. Many middlemen/coffee Brokers began their businesses motivated by the same ideas you articulate here. Coffee in Colombia today is considered some of the most innovative and exciting. 15 years ago Colombia was just production/cheap blend coffee. Middlemen has a massive role in changing this.
The average person walking into a cafe isn’t thinking at all about the farmer, all they care about is whether the aesthetics of a cafe suit them and that their latte tastes great. I guess my biggest problem with the main message in this documentary is that middlemen are a problem because they rip off farmers. When in reality it is big business that rips of farmers and roasters who set the prices they are willing to pay, and cafes who want $40,000 worth of equipment and a cheap KG price. The world is fake, everyone want to present a beautiful story and image of being ethical, sustainable, caring but behind the scenes they generally only care about the lower price.
@Leo I sincerely appreciate that you're taking the time to call out the missing pieces of information in this discussion. I completely agree with most of what you've said. And while I don't think it's accurate to describe the film as "very simplistic", you are correct in that it doesn't tell the whole story.
I guess for me, the discussion has to start somewhere. Educating the average consumer about the producers encourages them to start holding the roasters and cafes to account and hopefully starts them doing more research. The fact is that every part of the supply chain (which is made up of people, including the big business) needs to improve.
Here the focus is on the middle man because that is the reality for these farmers. This is their story. ASPROUNION was founded in 2001 so it's definitely not new. In fact, there are many medium and larger sized farms who co-operate and share/own a mill together but that this group of farmers working on lots less than 2 hectares where able to establish their own mill is remarkable.
Falta traducir a otros idiomas ;español..