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C

Over 1600 roasters
in China are buying from

the Coffee Exchange.

And as Lewis was no stranger to building his own
computer (back in 90s) and knew a lot about IT, online
B2B marketplace was a way to go.
The name Coffee Exchange was based on the idea
of coffee producers being able to openly market and sell
their coffees to interested buyers around the world. Lew-
is shared: “We’re not a traditional green coffee trading
company - we don’t’ buy coffee, add a margin and then
sell it on to roasters. We operate on a partnership model
where we offer producers the chance to connect with
roasters – we solve all aspects for producers to sell di-
rectly to roasters – these include market knowledge &
coffee evaluations, logistics, fulfilment & warehousing
and ultimately access to over 1500 roaster in China and
around 30 in the USA.”

Acknowledging the Problem

Because coffee is a perishable item, ideally it would
come directly from the farm to your doorstep, with as
few intermediaries as possible. However, the current
coffee supply chain is antiquated and inefficient, with up
to 20 middlemen and six months between the farmer and
you. Many coffee farmers have little market access, forc-
ing them to rely on middlemen to bring their green, un-
roasted coffee to the market. With so many intermediar-
ies, the typical coffee supply chain excludes farmers from
the most profitable activities and is in dire need of opti-
mization. Middlemen, and especially roasters, capture
nearly all of the profit after the crop leaves the farm. It’s
a stunningly disproportionate reward compared to the
amount of time, labor, and know-how farmers put into
their product.
Of the millions of coffee farmers worldwide, nearly
80 percent are small scale, often living on less than two
dollars per day. In the communities we work with in
northern Nicaragua, we have seen mothers choosing
which of their two children can afford to go to school,
women and men walking several kilometers to fetch
water, and people flocking to the community center on
the one day a doctor visits every few months.

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