What The F**K... Is Direct Trade?

Direct trade between farmers and roasters sounds like a good and fair deal all round – but what does it really mean? James Hansen explains all

- James Hansen

Like most consumer products, coffee changes hands as it passes through the supply chain. A café or restaurant will buy beans from a roaster. The roaster will have bought those beans from… well. Traditionally the answer has been from a broker or green buyer, but coffees move between producers and roasters in many different ways, and one of these is known as “direct trade”.

This is when coffee roasters travel to producing countries, commit to buying a lot or lots of coffee, and pay the farmer directly. These relationships are often established over many years and go beyond trade: roasters may invest in production facilities or new processing methods; farmers will visit roasters to taste the final product and offer reciprocal feedback.

The core of direct trade is relationship: as Alchemy Coffee’s Joseph O’Hara says, “It is a first-person relationship with the farmer – a relationship with no hidden corporate structure. It is an eyeball-to-eyeball agreement.” Alchemy says 70% of its coffee is now bought via direct trade.