2022 Impact Report Propelling Stability

When producers spot the first ripened coffee cherries at the beginning of the harvest season, it’s always a moment of culminated anticipation, satisfaction, and hope. However, market volatility keeps these sentiments at bay as producers live with the reality that the value of their final processed beans may not fully offset the investment they poured into their fields to ensure a plentiful harvest. We set out to disrupt this market norm and promote relationship-based trade among a community of coffee customers who, too, are committed to justly compensating small-scale coffee producers.

After record high coffee prices in 2021, the global value of coffee plummeted in 2022, during a year when the world and producers alike, experienced extreme inflation. While the international market under-valued the individuals growing and processing coffee, De La Gente, along with our green coffee community, chose to rise above the industry. In 2022, we negotiated contracts between our eight partner cooperatives and wholesale green coffee customers, all of which paid well above market standards.

Because of the relationships that we have fostered between roasters and the communities from which they’re purchasing, these negotiations are much richer than agreeing on a number. Rather, they become conversations about fairness, dignity, and prosperity for Guatemalan coffee-growing families and communities.

While our bulk impact is generated through wholesale green coffee sales, the incorporation of additional programs allows us to truly elevate our mission. In 2022, whether you purchased wholesale green or roasted beans, visited us in Guatemala, made a donation, or brewed the De La Gente taste in your own home, you all played a role in one more year of making coffee-growing a fruitful, stable, and dignified livelihood.

Julio Martinez | Interim Executive