Each summer, Sustainable Harvest® invites notable personalities from inside and outside the coffee industry to our Portland headquarters for conversation over lunch. This year’s Summer Speaker Series—which wrapped up this week—featured eight professionals ranging from a logistics expert to a restaurant mogul to a champion barista to an award-winning journalist.
With the upcoming 2014 edition of Sustainable Harvest®’s signature Let’s Talk Coffee® conference boasting the theme “Building a World-Class Supply Chain,” many of the speakers we selected have careers that tie into the subject of supply chains.
To kick off the series, B Lab’s senior associate of community development, Stephanie Ryan, identified what B Corp certification entails—chiefly, that companies meet the organization’s rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Sustainable Harvest® is proud to be one of the more than 1,000 Certified Benefit Corporations across the country, and Stephanie’s talk affirmed our enthusiasm about being part of that community.
The next speaker was Dorothy Sperry, environmental affairs manager at the Port of Portland, who spoke about the environmental impact of shipping. Her visit provided us with useful insight into shipping practices, a critical component of our operation linking producers to buyers.
Following Sperry’s visit we were joined by Kristofor Lofgren, CEO of the Sustainable Restaurant Group. Kristofor delved into how he goes about sourcing seafood and other food items for his Portland restaurants, Bamboo Sushi and the newly opened Bamboo Izakaya, each with two locations. He stressed a commitment to innovation within the seafood supply chain while pursuing increased environmental sustainability. Though Kristofor does not source coffee, the sourcing stories he shared offered a point of comparison for the work we do within our own supply chain.
Next, Steven Smith of Steven Smith Teamaker shared his lifelong desire to re-invest in tea-growing communities. Further, Smith described the innovative ways in which Smith Teamaker is striving to track the location and harvest dates of the teas used in its blends to foster a closer connection between producer and consumer.
The latter half of the series focused more closely on the retail side of the coffee industry and how best to communicate the stories of coffee producers.
Laila Ghambari, the reigning United States Barista Champion and director of coffee at Cherry Street Coffee House, joined us alongside Phil Beattie, director of coffee for Dillanos Coffee Roasters. Laila pulled delicious shots of espresso while also sharing memories of her USBC-winning run, where she distinguished herself from other competitors by closely working with Phil and Finca El Manzano producer Emilio Lopez Diaz on a presentation that showcased the coffee from farm to cup.
Our next speaker was Saul Gonzalez, news producer at Los Angeles public radio station KCRW, who gave our Story Team and other staff members valuable tips on the most effective ways we can share stories of our partner coffee producers with all members of the supply chain.
The summer series wrapped up with Darrin Daniel, director of sourcing and quality control at Colorado-based Allegro Coffee, who discussed his role in the new movie A Film About Coffee as well as the latest coffee-consuming patterns he has observed through Allegro.
We are very thankful to our speakers for dropping by this summer. Though the Summer Speaker Series has drawn to a close, Sustainable Harvest® looks forward to continuing the conversation around “Building a World-Class Supply Chain” at Let’s Talk Coffee® outside Panama City, October 9-12. We hope to see you there!
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