SCA USA Business Chats: Addressing Issues Currently Challenging Sustainability Of The Specialty Coffee Industry

Watch the SCA USA Business Chat: Addressing Issues Currently Challenging Sustainability Of The Specialty Coffee Industry happening on Thursday, July 8th, at 12 pm EST.

Event Description: Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian, Northeast Regional Coordinator for the SCA USA Chapter, with moderator Grayson Caldwell hosts a panel of world coffee professionals including Nelson Valverde, Iliana Delgado Chegwin, Jonia Leite Soares, Alejandro Cadena, Yuki Ebizawa & Amanda Eastwood, who will discuss their unique perspectives on issues currently challenging sustainability of the specialty coffee industry. Followed by Q&A with the audience.

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Panel Bios & Additional Resources:

Grayson Caldwell

Moderator

Grayson Caldwell is the Senior Sustainability Manager at Bellwether Coffee. With over 10 years of experience working in sustainable development and a Masters in Public Administration in Development Practice from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, she has dedicated her career to improving livelihoods. Prior to joining Bellwether, Grayson worked with Hunter College NYC's Food Policy Center, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, the Peace Corps, and nonprofits TechnoServe, Hot Bread Kitchen, and Ashoka.

Read Grayson’s WhitePaper on Living Income

Bell Wether Coffee | @bellwethercoffee

Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian

Host

Founder of JNP Coffee and Burundi Friends International, Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian is a licensed Q. grader and dedicated supporter/advocate for women coffee farmers in her native Burundi, East Africa. Farmers produce high-scoring specialty coffee beans, earn premiums from JNP Coffee’s global sales and gain financial literacy. In 2019, the YWCA of Central Massachusetts recognized Jeanine with its Katharine F. Erskine Award for Business and Law for her support of women as community builders.

JNP Coffee | @jnpcoffee

Nelson Valverde

Panelist

Nelson Valverde, MBA, is a serial entrepreneur. He was born in 1954 in La Paz, Bolivia, where he lived until he was 18 years old before leaving to attend college in the U.S. He graduated from Dartmouth College with a double major in Economics and Engineering and obtained an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His first professional job was as a department head with the Bolivian Planning Ministry. He then spent three years with World Bank in Washington DC, became a management consultant with a Cambridge-based firm, and spent 15 years as an International Banker with one of Boston’s largest banks, where he rose to the level of senior vice president and head of International Correspondent Banking. In 1995, he started an Internet Service Provider called GreenNet®, which is still in business. In 2004 he started his current passion Invalsa Coffee® -- a business dedicated to sourcing and distributing sustainably grown coffees by pioneering Direct Trade and selling coffee online. He became an international coffee judge by participating in many Cup of Excellence® competitions and head judge for Best of Antioquia, Colombia coffee competitions. In 2013, in partnership with Taza Chocolate (Somerville, MA), Invalsa started the first Bolivian, organically certified cacao fermentation plant: Alto Beni Cacao Company. Its cacao is now exported to the US, Australia and Europe. In 2015 in a 50/50 equity partnership with Bolivian indigenous farmers Nelson started two coffee farms in the Caranavi region, specializing in microlots. Those coffees are now exported to the US, Australia, Korea and Europe.

Invalsa Coffee | @nelval82

Iliana Delgado Chegwin

Panelist

Iliana Delgado Chegwin is originally from Barranquilla but belongs to a coffee-growing family in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. She has a Bachelor’s in International Business with a specialization in coffee and has worked in every stage of the coffee supply chain, from seed to cup, with her family’s company. In 2016, Iliana began working for the Colombian Coffee Grower’s Federation’s (FNC) specialty coffee department and since 2018 until 2021, she worked as a Relationship Manager for Azahar Coffee Company. Iliana believes that—among all the challenges affecting the specialty coffee industry—pricing is the most crucial issue and a problem that must be solved. She is currently to work alongside her father, growing, milling, exporting and roasting organic coffee.

Read the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide

Exportadora de Café Isabelita | @cafeISABELITA

Jonia Leite Soares

Panelist

Jonia is currently working as Business Development Manager at Cafe Brisa Serena, a specialty coffee exporter in Timor-Leste, to support the promotion of high-quality Timor-Leste coffee into the specialty coffee market. Jonia was driven to work in the coffee industry to improve their livelihood through creating value-added coffee products through branding and promotion into specialty coffee markets and supporting the growth of the coffee industry in her country. She is passionate about working to create social impact business and supporting local product development in her country.

Cafe Brisa Serena | @cafebrisaserena

Alejandro Cadena

Panelist

Alejandro Cadena is the co-founder and CEO of Caravela Coffee, a company focused on sourcing and selling green coffee from Latin America. A native of Colombia, in 2002 he ended his career as an investment banker in the City of London to move back home and disrupt the way coffee was traded at the time, privileging quality, traceability and transparency over volume, and working directly with small coffee producers, empowering them by rewarding them with recognition and higher prices. Under his leadership, Caravela partners with more than 4,000 producers and 500 coffee roasters around the world, and has become the highest rated coffee BCorp in the world.

Read Alejandro’s Report on Sustainable Price for Farmers Based on Farm Size and Productivity

Caravela Coffee | @caravelacoffee

Yuki Ebizawa

Panelist

Working on to improve the quality of lives of coffee farmers through specialty coffee production in Timor-Leste since 2015. Providing the technical assistance to farmers and marketing in the international market.

Peace Winds Japan/ Cafe Brisa Serena | @cafebrisaserena

Amanda Eastwood

Panelist

Over the past 15 years working in the coffee industry, Amanda has assumed roles at various points along the supply chain and has spent the last decade of her career living and work at origin.

Her coffee career began in sales at a US based specialty coffee importer. Eastwood eventually pursued a Master’s in Public Health with the aim of promoting equity along the supply chain and supporting producing communities from origin. Amanda supported women’s reproductive health alongside NGO Grounds for Health living and working in the coffee-lands of Mexico, Tanzania and Nicaragua, led micro-lot sourcing and sales for a Costa Rican based exporter, and eventually oversaw responsible sourcing in Latin America for a UK based coffee importer.

After seven years based in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Amanda relocated to Lima, Peru and is now Director of Supply Chain Partnerships at Westrock Coffee focused on responsible coffee sourcing and developing traceable and transparent supply chains.

Westrock Coffee Company | @westrockcoffee