Just Coffee 15th Anniversary

press release: The coffee that has helped Madison wake up and get to work for the last 15 years is celebrating with an anniversary party this month.

Just Coffee Cooperative is sponsoring a celebration on Sunday, Oct. 29, from 3-7 pm at the Harmony Bar and Grill, 2201 Atwood Avenue, for all its customers and friends who have gulped gallons of "Revolution Roast," "Bike Fuel," and other favorite blends since it opened its doors as Madison's first 100% fair trade coffee roaster in 2002. We're celebrating with music, giveaways & general merriment. Kids welcome!

Just Coffee Co-op, located at 3701 Orin Rd, has grown over the years to 35 employees who roast beans from small-scale farmers in more than a dozen nations from around the world, including Nicaragua, Mexico, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia and Guatemala.

"Our business model is built around mutually beneficial relationships," says Just Coffee co-founder Matt Earley, a Lexington, Kentucky native who moved to Madison to get his master's degree in Latin American Studies at UW-Madison. "Coffee was just a vehicle. Our goal is to build long-term relationships with small-scale coffee farmers to make a truly incredible cup of coffee. In that order."

Coffee farmers were getting just 25 cents a pound in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico when Earley first visited. Last year Just Coffee’s farmer partners received over $2.44 a pound. In 2016 Just Coffee was able to return more than $10,000 in donations for farmer-led community development projects in the producing countries and thousands of dollars more in premiums for grants to farmer co-ops for production improvements.

“We want to have a real effect on the people we work with, both farmers and people in our own community,” says Earley. "You can't have political democracy without also having economic democracy. Otherwise there is an unequal power relationship. We want people to think about the fact that when we buy coffee, tea, blue jeans, or whatever, we are supporting a system and a group of people with our purchase. What kind of system do we want to support?”