Smoke screen alert
My wife thinks I have Irish blood in me, but I keep playing the line that I'm 100% Scottish, as that's what I was brought up to believe.
She thinks it's my extreme passion and fiery temper when something is wrong that proves without doubt that I'm more Irish than Scottish.
Yes, I confess to enjoying a rant when smelling a rat.
At times, I've tried to bite my tongue for as long as possible, but something has to bust when I see our industry peers relentlessly banging about their ultra-exclusive and oh-so-special Direct Trade coffee.
In 2016, many coffee companies claimed Direct Trade as a key marketing exercise helping differentiate in an overcrowded coffee market.
At mycuppa, we also have a Direct trade product offered for sale, so we can't be dissing the industry for no reason.
However, it was an essential business experiment to see if there is a beneficial outcome for everyone concerned in Direct Trade because you don't know until you live it.
Well, I can tell you from first-hand experience - it's nothing special, and the perceived rewards or differences are nothing but a perception.
Companies that promote their Direct Trade credentials are projecting a rather preposterous illusion of their roaster travelling to the origin, sampling lots on farms and then purchasing special coffee.
Or the marketing buffoons blow up the over-inflated concept. They have secured something special that the rest of us can't get. It's the secret handshake that makes all the difference.
Read between these lines, and you soon realize this is precisely what has been occurring for the last 150 years in sourcing raw coffees used worldwide.
It's nothing new or exclusive here except lush pictures and the slick marketing campaign.
It's a wonderful story that looks so easy.
In the last few years, selling an emotional journey with food or beverage products has been the key element of marketing magic.
Nowhere has this been more prevalent than in premium quality segments, as it serves to justify excessive margins that many retailers slug upon naive consumers.
Direct Trade coffee systems are designed to tick most of our boxes in the ethical or moral subconscious, drawing you emotionally into the story and entrenching your loyalty and support.
However, it's an exaggerated war cry to join the journey of helping out poor, struggling farmers.
But the stark reality of Direct Trade coffee contrasts the marketing hype as such a small percentage of coffee is Direct Trade in Australia—barely 1%.
Unfortunately, with so much rampant deception in our unregulated coffee industry, they get away with saying anything with nobody to challenge, inspect or expose their truths or lies.
Let's take a look at the practicalities of Direct Trade coffees.
Travel to many of the world's coffee origins is considered extremely dangerous without the appropriate levels of care and the assistance of local people to navigate from airports, local transport and accommodation.
Then you have coffee farms in remote areas of the country, high in the mountains. It's never going to be a typical tourist route and requires literally an extra day of travel through pothole-ridden back roads - certainly not a pleasant taxi ride from the airport.
With most of the coffee farms or plantations having existing, long-standing agreements with their local exporters and agents, it's naive to believe these long-standing agreements will be gazumped by the random outsider rocking up at their doorstep.
Some countries also have regulations by way of national systems such as coffee boards and federations run by government or industry agencies.
Please don't get the wrong idea. We know many coffee farmers exist in a state of poverty or borderline oppression, so our point here is not to shame farmers but those marketing profiteers on the retail side peddling fake lies.
How does a visiting roaster adequately test coffee at the farm when there are no roasters, barely any running water, limited electricity and only basic levels of infrastructure?
How can this intrepid traveller also be at the farm at the precise moment the coffee has been harvested and about to be processed - before the farmer, who in most cases has run out of money by this stage and eagerly seeks to sell his crop as a matter of urgency, offers it up to local interests.
Many farmers also need the proper processing facilities, so they sell the cherries to Co-op or local agents.
Another party normally performs the grading, pulping, drying and packing of the coffee, so it's likely already been sold by that stage, or at least some deal exists.
So, in this case, the Australian coffee brand traveller may have to negotiate with the local agents, which is the same process Australian brokers already perform.
It begs the question. Is this Direct Trade?
Of course, it's not.
Let's now look at the logistics of safely moving tons of coffee from one country to another through the myriad of export and import quarantine requirements.
Remember, many of these farms are in remote regions with 3rd world challenges of limited transportation and processing goods at many ports that require a special kind of negotiation, namely a few "bribes".
Once coffee has landed and cleared customs in Australia, what happens if the manifest does not match the pre-shipment samples used as the basis for purchase quality?
Of course, that's a huge risk that occurs more often than most people realize.
So even with import brokers and their extensive quality controls, we reject new arrivals every month due to the quality not matching our standards.
You see, Direct Trade is not the romantic notion that is often portrayed in the marketing hype.
The pictures of the coffee company directors or roasters at plantations are sometimes just nothing more than a plain and simple selfie opportunity.
Coffee companies are already struggling to compete against each other in Australia without dealing with the costs, risks and headaches of sourcing from overseas.
When you blow away the smoke and mirrors of Direct Trade, you realize the coffee is not unique or exclusive.
It's unlikely to involve higher payments to farmers because these things are never transparently disclosed, and ultimately, it's not disrupting the industry like Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, or Google.
For over a century, coffee has been traded similarly, but its story has been sensationalized to captivate our imagination.
After almost 20 years of sourcing more than 1.5 million kilos of coffee, we already know that the risks of Direct Trade outweigh the rewards or benefits.