Our Sustainable Supply Chain, Simplified

Desert Sun Coffee Roasters is a part of Cooperative Coffees, a coffee import cooperative with a focus on sustainable relationships in the coffee industry. As a roaster-member of Cooperative Coffees, Desert Sun has a direct hand in the sustainable supply chain of the coffee you enjoy each and every morning. 

In the past, we’ve talked about just how Desert Sun Coffee Roasters fits into Cooperative Coffees. Have a look if you need more information.

Cooperative Coffees has a few main goals within the coffee industry: promote fair and direct trade relationships between coffee roaster-members and producer communities, create long-lasting working relationships with farmers, and to support (both financially and with resources) regenerative agriculture practices.

The Cooperative Coffees supply chain starts with the small-scale farmer in countries like Honduras, Indonesia, Bolivia, and many more. Representatives from “the Coop” travel to each country and meet with coffee farmer cooperatives who are interested in becoming trading partners. These farmers have worked hard to organize their communities into highly functional cooperatives capable of managing the multitude of tasks involved in export trade.

When we are looking for farmer partners it is important to us to look at how women are empowered in the farming or management of such cooperatives. You can even see how many women are involved in each farm or cooperative on our data-tracking website FairTradeProof.

Cooperative Coffees then does its part to earn the title of "best buyer"; which means maintaining healthy, long-term trading relationships. The most important aspect is fair payment: we offer more than the global standard Fair Trade rate. This is an inherent core value of Cooperative Coffees.

Other incentives to join Cooperative Coffees include our most recent initiatives: Carbon Climate and Coffee: Moving the Needle from Cool Farms to Soil Carbon Premiums, a pilot project implementing the Cool Farm Tool, and the Carbon, Climate and Coffee Initiative, a project in which we invest in producers’ environmental service projects.

Once negotiations are made and a farmer or small community enters into a trading relationship with Cooperative Coffees, we work throughout the year to directly import the freshest and most delicious beans from around the world. We work closely with the same farmers year after year, which provides sustainable income for communities around the world. And we’re always reinvesting into these communities through the Impact Fund and other opportunities.