Coffee Features
2024 Was a Warning
The past year of climate shocks and surging coffee prices has felt portentous. Without significant investment and industry cooperation, coffee’s future seems increasingly uncertain.
Fionn Pooler
Coffee Features
The Purpose of the Coffee Industry Is What It Does
Coffee brands love to tout their ethics and human rights policies, yet the supply chain is still built on poverty. At some point, we have to judge the industry not by what it says but by its actions.
Coffee Features
Coffee, Community, and a Year of Silence
The coffee industry loves “community”, but it doesn’t always love the solidarity that the word signifies. Nowhere is this more obvious than in its reaction—or lack thereof—to the genocide in Gaza.
Coffee Features
From South to North: Farmer-Owned Coffee Companies Are Challenging the Industry's Power Structures
Companies in the Global North capture most of the profits generated along the coffee supply chain. But farmer-owned coffee roasters offer a more equitable model—and a path forward for the industry.
Coffee Features
There Is No Such Thing as an 'Unskilled’ Coffee Job
Baristas and other hourly coffee workers are undervalued and underpaid—but they are far from unskilled, despite what the pernicious stereotypes suggest.
Coffee Features
Corporate Philanthropy Will Not Save the Coffee Industry
Coffee companies love to fund projects that look good in press releases and impact reports. However, corporate philanthropy is mostly a shield to deflect criticism, protect power, and avoid regulation.
Coffee Features
Starbucks and the Myth of the Third Place
Starbucks wants to be known as a community gathering space, even after morphing into the ultimate convenience-focused coffee chain. But was it ever truly a third place in the first place?
Coffee Features
Please Just Let Millennials Enjoy Our Coffee
That latte you just bought is the reason you won’t be able to retire, according to the financial gurus. But why has coffee become such a potent symbol of Millennial misspending in the first place?
The Pesticides Underpinning Coffee’s Healthy Image
Seemingly every week, a new study reaffirms that coffee is beneficial to drinkers. Everyone’s favourite morning beverage has been shown to reduce the risk of various cancers; it can lower your chances of developing neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s; reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes;
Coffee Features
Where Are All the British Coffee Unions?
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to call the unionisation drive at Starbucks monumental. The movement—which began at a single store in Buffalo, New York, in December 2021—inspired not only other Starbucks employees but coffee workers around the United States to organise their workplaces and fight for
Coffee Features
Equity Crowdfunding and the Democratisation of Coffee Investing
Welcome to the fourth article in a series investigating private equity and venture capital in the coffee industry. If you missed them, you can read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here. This series has involved extensive research and dozens of interviews—if you value this kind
How Corporations and Executives Captured the Coffee Industry’s Profits
Coffee is big business. The global industry is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, much of that spent by American consumers whose thirst for coffee shows no sign of slowing down. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people rely on coffee for their livelihoods, from farmers and factory workers