Specialty coffee - a good business for whom?
High quality and a higher price do not in themselves ensure better earnings for the coffee farmer. This is highlighted in Ethos Agriculture’s Coffee Barometer 2026. For those of us who exclusively roast specialty coffee, it is an important reminder: the payment for quality must also make sense for those who create it.
The report indicates that more careful picking, sorting, and processing are not necessarily sufficiently rewarded. Even when the producer receives a higher price, the extra work can eat into the profit.
It is worth considering when you choose coffee for the kitchen or a coffee supplier for the entire workplace. You can judge the taste in your cup. The supplier should be able to explain the trade behind it.
Quality should pay off
We love talking about tasting notes. About sweetness, acidity, and the new harvest we have been looking forward to bringing in.
But those qualities begin with people who invest time, knowledge, and labor in the coffee.
Coffee Barometer 2026 reviews research showing that the added value of specialty coffee is unevenly distributed. A higher price for consumers is not automatically followed by a corresponding gain for the producer.
This raises a question we must continue to ask: When we ask for high quality, do we also pay fairly for the work behind it?
You should not settle for our word
The report also examines 15 large roasteries and coffee traders. Public information is lacking on, among other things, prices and the duration of the agreements. This makes it difficult to verify how the companies' ambitions align with their purchasing.
At the same time, the report highlights a shift towards more company-led control schemes, with varying levels of transparency and opportunities for external verification.
This raises an important question: Who actually assesses whether the words are kept?
At CleverCoffee, we would like to tell you about our work. But we know very well that we should not be the only ones assessing it.
That’s why we let others read our cards
In November 2025, CleverCoffee received a score of 92 out of 100 and a Platinum medal from EcoVadis. This placed us among the top 1% of the companies EcoVadis had assessed in the preceding 12 months.
EcoVadis assesses companies' performance based on documentation. This includes policies, actions, and results in areas such as the environment, working conditions, human rights, and ethics.
We are proud of this. But what matters to you as a coffee customer is that you get an external basis for assessing the company behind the coffee.
We have also been B Corp certified since 2021. Here, the company is assessed across areas including governance, employees, community, and environment.
The assessments serve different purposes. None of them alone tell you what the individual farmer gets out of a trade. Therefore, they must be accompanied by concrete information about our purchasing.
Our prices should also be able to stand up to the daylight
In our Transparency Report, we disclose the producer, purchase volume, and price.
From October 2024 to September 2025, we paid an average of 20.3% above the international C-market price at the time of contracting, on a weighted average basis. The prices cover the coffee up to the port of export and thus reflect our purchase price, not the individual farmer's net income.
The figures allow you to see what we are comparing against and ask further questions. Together with external assessments, they provide a more informed basis for choosing a coffee supplier.
We also need each other
Coffee Barometer acknowledges that industry collaborations have created shared knowledge and methods. But the report calls for clearer commitments and results. Membership does not do the work in itself.
This is a relevant reminder for us as co-founders of the B Corp Coffee Coalition. Here, B Corp companies from different parts of the coffee industry come together to share experiences and develop common approaches. Among the proposed areas of work are the distribution of value and risk, as well as producers' opportunities to build a stronger economy.
That work must be translated into practice. Our contribution begins with the experiences and purchasing decisions we ourselves can put forward.
Are you looking for a coffee partner?
We are happy to bring both samples and documentation to the meeting.
Sources
https://coffeebarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Coffee-Barometer-2026.pdf
CleverCoffee Transparency Report 2025
https://support.ecovadis.com/hc/en-us/articles/210460227-Understanding-EcoVadis-Medals-and-Badges
https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/company/clever-coffee/
https://bcorpcoffee.org