FOLLOW OUR PROGRESS

Create a roastery that uses coffee as a catalyst to support positive change. This is done by aligning profits and revenue to:

• Support non-profit organizations, giving a minimum of 20 percent of the revenue from its coffee fundraising program to organizations who use the program.

• Use a minimum of 10 percent of the roastery’s annual profits to support economic, social, and environmental improvements for the roastery.

UPDATE:Breyting Community Roaster became a reality in 2019. The company reimagined and renovated 126 W. Ohio Ave. in DeLand, FL to include a design studio, Airbnb suite, tasting bar, Zen Garden, and a roastery. The new facility represents a $1.2 million dollar investment and can produce 1,440 bags of coffee per day, enough to fulfill our coffee orders and fuel our progress.

We engage with holistic attorneys (peacemakers) to create conscious contracts for our operating agreement. (Our operating agreement ensures that our philosophy and ethics supersede profit-making activities). In addition, our general operating agreements, licensing, vendor contracts, and other agreements that foster fair and ethical business dealings contain a conflict resolution process that promotes healing and creates a path for our partnerships to get back into alignment and win-win harmony, even if that outcome is parting ways.

1) We collaborate with our box vendors, retail partners, and freight companies to determine the most efficient box size.

UPDATE: The current square boxes we use today significantly reduce freight costs and reduce paper waste by more than 30 percent and optimize shelf space.

2) IN PROGRESS: Develop and convert to a paper/biodegradable inner bag with a degassing valve that meets requirements for freshness. Work with our flexible packaging and corrugated box partners to use even safer inks.

Work with schools and designers to create a freestanding shop-n-shop display for our fundraising campaigns.

Create a garden dedicated to teaching the benefits of tea, coffee, and indigenous Florida edible plants. This garden will work in conjunction with schools and organizations to promote healthy living. The garden will feature vertical stacked hydroponics, specialized grow trellises, and conventional growing. There’s an additional emphasis on water conservation and increasing yields while embracing traditional farming practices that deny the use of pesticides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4UWiYB1Rmw

Research, design, and implement a plan to power the roastery and grounds using only solar energy.

Invest in an afterburner for our roaster to release an exhaust stream that is even cleaner and virtually free of smoke and odor.

Create a self-imposed recycling program that includes an on-site, multi-bin compost structure for all of our coffee production wastes.

Structure and implement a profit-sharing program for full-time and part-time company staff.

Develop a branded partnership program for Breyting Community Roaster built on cooperative principles. The idea is to create efficiencies through economies of scale for our trading partners that will enable them to be competitive in the marketplace.

This partnership will include programs for marketing materials, national marketing campaigns, green coffee, supplies, equipment, branded boxes, and a dedicated support team that will offer training, operational support, technology guidance, and sales programs.

One lesson we learned from importing coffee? It should be treated as a separate business and be set up as an independently run company that works in tandem with our roastery. We plan to establish a coffee and tea import company built on cooperative principles for the purpose of importing specialty coffees and teas, not only for Breyting Community Roaster but over like-minded coffee companies.

A founding principle of our company is “Don’t let people, markets, or organizations control your destiny.” For this reason, this new company will be vertically integrated, from the farmers to the consumers. A key component to this new company is developing a simple web-based, transparent certification system. That will allow our customers to trace their coffee to the farmers who grew it by viewing third-party soil reports, view video of the farms, and see the documents that provide proof of fair and equal compensation to farmers (including the women farmers who comprise 70 percent of the labor force). This new venture will also seek to increase our intake of organic coffees.