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Foodservice News educates and elevates with its coverage of the Upper Midwest foodservice industry.
We focus on the professionals in foodservice: from restaurant owners, managers and chefs; to school, office, healthcare and retirement center foodservice managers; to the suppliers and vendors who market their products and services. We examine trends, issues and the people who shape this important business segment.
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| John Mwangi and Dunn Bros CEO Chris Eilers with the Aquapulper. |
Coffee’s fair trade-off
By Nancy Weingartner
Minneapolis-based Dunn Bros and new technology bring hope to African coffee growers.
To most Americans, coffee is how we start our mornings or finish a three-course meal. To the coffee farmers of the third world, however, it’s a cash crop that sometimes costs more to sow than it reaps. Plus it’s physically hard, repetitive work, especially if you want to produce specialty coffee, which draws a higher price. The “cherries” must be hand-picked numerous times in order to pluck ripe—not green or overripe—cherries, which result in heavier beans that roast into more flavorful coffee.
Coffee permeates the Kenyan culture, which is ironic because it is a tea-drinking country thanks to its years under British dominance. Kenyans export the premium beans and keep the inferior ones for their own use. So it’s no wonder that when Dunn Bros CEO Chris Eilers, VP of marketing Mark Christenson and I were invited to lunch at the Gakurari Factory in the Gatanga region of Kenya, we were served instant packets of Sanka and hot water. The locals are just now learning how to brew coffee, rather than boil it, so it tastes superior to the instant variety and can compete with the tea, also grown in the region.
It’s not often a company will go out of its way to pay more than required for its signature product, but Dunn Bros Coffee, based in Minneapolis, has made a commitment to coffee farmers in both Latin America and Eastern Africa: Provide the quality coffee we require and we’ll buy straight from your farm or your co-op at better than fair-trade prices.
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Foodservice News 2009 Minnesota Vendor Directory—the best desk reference for the foodservice industry is printed and online!
The 2010 directory will be included as an 8.5 X 11 insert into the April issue of Foodservice News. The directory will also be posted on this Web site for one year, with your Web site link in your listing. From food and equipment to consultants and services, this directory is designed to help find anything someone in foodservice needs. Check it out!
Click here to sign up for the 2010 Directory >>>
Our readership includes 9,000 foodservice professionals in Minnesota, Northern Iowa, Western Wisconsin and the Eastern Dakotas. We are the definitive source for information in the Upper Midwest for restaurant owners and chefs.
We focus our lens on the issues, the politics and the people who make up the foodservice community, from restaurant owners and managers to chefs and waitstaff to institutional food program managers to suppliers and vendors.
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