Animo Coffee Roasters is built on a simple conviction that coffee is material. It’s a fruit from a tree that requires extensive material resources to cultivate, particular environmental conditions to grow, and the input of many hours of skilled human labor to produce. This complex network of variables is under existential threat. Coffee-producing ecosystems are disappearing due to climate change. Production costs are ever-increasing while farmer compensation stagnates. Value distribution across the supply chain is starkly unbalanced, where farmers contribute the clear majority of labor required to produce coffee but receive a fraction of its market value. This model is fundamentally unsustainable. 

The global demand for high-volume, cheap coffee fuels this system.  The specialty coffee industry sought to challenge this by focusing on quality but has effectively extended consumption culture without really challenging inequity across the supply chain.  In specialty coffee we love to talk about values, sustainability, and quality without addressing the numbers. 

We think you should see the numbers. Every bag we sell displays what the farmer, co-op, estate, or other production facility was paid, what we paid for the raw coffee to the importer or exporter, and what it costs us to get it to you.  Knowing this information is vital for better understanding value distribution across the supply chain and making consumption choices that are congruent with our values for a more equitable and sustainable future for all.

Trained in London and Copenhagen by Morten Munchow of CoffeeMind, our approach to roasting is grounded in sensory science and functionalism.  Our roasting approach is centered around reflecting each coffee’s unique story—its origin, terroir, variety, and processing method. Since coffee is a fruit, we believe it should taste something like it!

Interview with Coffee Compass: