SAILCARGO INC. has purchased the cargo vessel S/V Vega Gamleby. Vega will sail approximately 148 cubic metres (or 82 tons) of green coffee beans and other dry goods between Colombia and the United States. Photo Courtesy SailCargo
May 21, 2022,(Bloomberg) –There’s never been a more dreamy way to have your coffee delivered than a sailboat across the Atlantic.
A small number of specialty roasters in Europe are now offering beans that have been sailed — rather than shipped via fossil-fuel burning vessels — from South America. While they’re a rare luxury compared with standard bags of supermarket coffee, these wind-blown beans may inspire some imaginative ideas for finding and stamping out carbon emissions from your everyday life.
Here’s a glimpse of the journey: Roasters buy the beans directly from growers in countries like Colombia before they’re stored in a warehouse and loaded onto a sailboat — destined for ports like Le Havre, France or Penzance, England. The crossing typically takes six weeks. The beans are then couriered to specialty roasters before ending up in espressos served in coffee shops or at home.
“You’re one step away from the coffee being grown, almost,” said Richard Blake, founder of Yallah Coffee, a Cornwall-based roaster who sells beans sailed from Colombia. A 1-kilogram bag of Yallah Coffee’s Las Brisas beans costs £50 ($62) but boasts “a carbon footprint close to zero.” As a price comparison, the most expensive coffee beans UK supermarket Tesco Plc sells online is a 1-kilogram bag for £13.75 ($17).
Blake said people are happy to pay for a premium product “if they feel like there is value in all the steps.”
“That can be lost with the homogenized mix of beans on a supermarket shelf,” he said, “whereas if it’s single origin, and if it’s on a ship, there’s less people in the chain, and that creates more value.”
A few years ago, a small group of environmentally focused entrepreneurs, such as Shipped by Sail in the UK, started using pirate-like schooners to prove that goods like coffee could be transported with near-zero emissions — even if it took more money and all the risks linked with crossing the Atlantic on hundred-year-old wooden boats for a couple dozen bags of high-end beans.
What started as bravado is now making a bit more business sense. Consumers have become more willing to pay extra for the greener coffee and roasters are rising to the challenge to provide it to them. Bloomberg via g-captain - link - Irina Anghel - link - and Eamon Akil Farhat - link - Bloomberg - link - more like this (shipping) - link - more like this (food and drink) - link - more like this (Le Havre) - link
A small number of specialty roasters in Europe are now offering beans that have been sailed — rather than shipped via fossil-fuel burning vessels — from South America. While they’re a rare luxury compared with standard bags of supermarket coffee, these wind-blown beans may inspire some imaginative ideas for finding and stamping out carbon emissions from your everyday life.
Here’s a glimpse of the journey: Roasters buy the beans directly from growers in countries like Colombia before they’re stored in a warehouse and loaded onto a sailboat — destined for ports like Le Havre, France or Penzance, England. The crossing typically takes six weeks. The beans are then couriered to specialty roasters before ending up in espressos served in coffee shops or at home.
“You’re one step away from the coffee being grown, almost,” said Richard Blake, founder of Yallah Coffee, a Cornwall-based roaster who sells beans sailed from Colombia. A 1-kilogram bag of Yallah Coffee’s Las Brisas beans costs £50 ($62) but boasts “a carbon footprint close to zero.” As a price comparison, the most expensive coffee beans UK supermarket Tesco Plc sells online is a 1-kilogram bag for £13.75 ($17).
Blake said people are happy to pay for a premium product “if they feel like there is value in all the steps.”
“That can be lost with the homogenized mix of beans on a supermarket shelf,” he said, “whereas if it’s single origin, and if it’s on a ship, there’s less people in the chain, and that creates more value.”
A few years ago, a small group of environmentally focused entrepreneurs, such as Shipped by Sail in the UK, started using pirate-like schooners to prove that goods like coffee could be transported with near-zero emissions — even if it took more money and all the risks linked with crossing the Atlantic on hundred-year-old wooden boats for a couple dozen bags of high-end beans.
What started as bravado is now making a bit more business sense. Consumers have become more willing to pay extra for the greener coffee and roasters are rising to the challenge to provide it to them. Bloomberg via g-captain - link - Irina Anghel - link - and Eamon Akil Farhat - link - Bloomberg - link - more like this (shipping) - link - more like this (food and drink) - link - more like this (Le Havre) - link
No comments:
Post a Comment