Our Business Model
Thanksgiving’s Ben Corey-Moran during a business training workshop with Peace Kawomera’s Board of Directors. Photo: jemglo.org, 2008
Members of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative tasting their coffees, part of our quality development program. Photo: Ben Corey-Moran, 2006
“We are very grateful for Thanksgiving Coffee, and glad that you have come to visit us in Uganda. You have encouraged us, and you have given us energy to love our coffee trees. Even our youth—my grandsons included—now have the hope to be coffee farmers one day.” — Samaili Bissaso, Peace Kawomera Member. Photo: Ben Corey-Moran, 2006
Thanksgiving Coffee Company is an artisan roaster built on the belief that the best coffees in the world come from small-scale family farmers, and that the only sustainable coffee business is one in which everyone from the farmers to the roaster to the consumer lives in harmony with each other.
Our partnership with the Peace Kawomera Cooperative is built on the principles of fair trade, and on our shared desire to fulfill the farmers’ dreams of peace and prosperity. Since the day that CEO Paul Katzeff learned of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative (PKC) and pledged to buy their entire crop before even tasting it, we have committed to providing long-term support for the Cooperative. We have purchased all of their coffee for the past 4 years, and plan to continue to do so for many years to come.
From the beginning, we’ve worked to build a business partnership based on trust, transparency, and mutual benefit. Relationships built on these values are the foundation for success in our line of work. The secrets to successful relationships are listening to each other, dreaming together, and developing plans to achieve goals of progress and a better future. With the farmers of the PKC, we sort out problems in the short term, while planning strategically for the long term; we communicate frequently, at times daily, by phone and email, and share our challenges with openness and the confidence that comes from shared history; we spend time together, not short visits, but weeks at a time, in our community, and theirs, living together, sharing meals, meeting, planning, and negotiating agreements.
We pay the Fair Trade Certified™ price of $1.61 per pound (as set by the international regulatory agency FLO) and provide access to pre-harvest financing for the Cooperative so that farmers can receive advance payments before their coffee actually ships.
Our business is about relationships, and our commitment to the farmers of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative is to build a business that trades fair prices for great coffee, thereby building a sustainable prosperity, and progress based on empowerment, not charity. Finally, we aim to forge personal relationships between the farmers of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative and communities here in the US; transforming the way that products and experiences are exchanged in our world.