Detour Coffee Roasters

Detour was founded with one simple guiding principle: roast the best coffees, the best we can. Such a simple statement doesn't answer the multitude of questions we get from our customers especially in regards to sustainability and certifications such as organic and Fair Trade. We like to use the term "Approach" to the way we source our coffees: APPROACH We believe in building relationships with importers and producers based upon mutual respect and the pursuit of quality. Ideally we would be able to buy every one of our coffees direct from origin. However, the logistical implications and cost of this means we can only do a small amount of it. This year we have purchased directly 1/2 of our Guatemalan coffees and all our Costa Ricans. For most of our coffees we work closely with importers who share the same guiding principals as ourselves and who pay a premium to secure high quality coffees. These importers work directly in producing countries sourcing coffees often purchasing from the same producers year after year which means we can continue to access amazing coffees. We get asked about Fair Trade certification a lot. One important protection of Fair Trade is establishing an absolute minimum price paid to farmers when the commodity price of coffee drops sharply. Currently the minimum Fair Trade price is $1.40 /lb for Arabica coffee. When the commodity market is higher than $1.40, let's say at $2.40, then there is a premium levied above this price of $.20/lb or $2.60/lb. We believe that certification programs are important and at the absolute minimum big companies should be purchasing coffees fairly. However, we feel Fair Trade doesn't go far enough and we have some key challenges with Fair Trade certification in our own practices: First, the Fair Labeling Organization only works with large groups of farms organized into cooperatives, not small individual farms. Most of the producers we work with are smaller farms and have already distinguished themselves based upon the quality of their product; They have connected with micro roasters and importers who have discovered them through competitions such as Cup of Excellence. These producers can fetch much higher prices in the open market and there is no incentive for them to certify their products. One example is of an amazing coffee from the Buf Cafe in Rwanda we purchased this year and paid $5.50 US when at the same time we could have bought a Fair Trade certified coffee from Rwanda for $3.15 US. We tasted both coffees side by side blindly and the Buf Cafe outscored the Fair Trade coffee. The Buf Cafe lot also comes with an amazing story, and we had this coffee featured at this years TED Conference in Los Angeles: (Coffee Common). At Detour our focus is quality and Fair Trade certification doesn't guarantee quality. We also find that the best tasting coffees usually come from smaller farms. We feel that the best coffees deserve the same respect as fine wines. We often use the analogy of taking wines from all the wine producers in Niagara and mixing them together. Is this the best thing for Niagara wine producers and the local economy? Or is best to let individual producers distinguish themselves and dictate price instead? Unfortunately we are far from coffee reaching the same price and levels of quality that we see in wine but if we continue to commoditize coffee and keep producers anonymous the possibility of pushing the boundaries of quality coffee will continue to escape us. In the end, we feel that through quality as a guiding principle we can make an impact in the lives of producers and treat them with the level of respect they deserve.