April 2011 Coffee News

-A Growing Family - in Pictures
-A Growing Business - in Numbers
-Open House Report

The family photo we have been using on our website for the past few years no long represented the reality of our growing children, so we decided to have a new portrait taken recently and just uploaded it yesterday. It seemed a good time to reflect back on the changes in our family and our business over the past 10 years and so in this month's newsletter we compare 2001 to 2010 through photos and numbers, as well as give a report from our very successful Open House Brunch last month.

A Growing Family - In Pictures
We loved the portrait that our friend Christy Myers of Christy Myers Photography took for us in 2007, but our kids had grown a fair amount since then (both boys are now taller than Cathy and edging up on Guillermo) so we asked her to take a new one. You can see the new picture Christy took for us as well as four older pictures we have used for our family business in our website gallery.

A Growing Business - In Numbers
Along with the visual representation of the growth of our family these past ten years, we offer up a few numbers that represent the changes in our business since our humble beginnings 10 years ago. 

• In 2001, we imported 2000 pounds of green coffee and had $6,981 in gross sales.
• In 2010, we imported 17,000 pounds of green coffee and grossed $95,273. Of those gross sales, we were pleased to send $29,000 (30%) to our Honduras family for coffee purchases. We kept another 30% for our local family income needs, using the remaining 40% for things like roasting, shipping, and other operating costs.

We greatly appreciate the loyalty of our growing family of customers who have helped us come this far!

Open House Coffee Brunch - A Report
We were very pleased to have just over 50 people attend our Open House Brunch on March 19th and we greatly enjoyed meeting and chatting with coffee customers both old and new. In addition, over 30 people have expressed interest in a potential trip to our coffee farm. Based on feedback from the people who attended and our own schedules it looks like the best dates for future trips are January 2012 and June 2012. If you were not able to attend and you are interesed in more information about traveling with us to Honduras, just shoot us an email at coffee@vfamilycoffee.com or give us a call at 651-587-5356.

Other Great Events
Another reminder about two other great events coming up:
-The World Jubilee Fair Trade market TOMORROW, April 2nd at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church 700 Snelling Avenue South in St. Paul. Beautiful items from all over the world!
-The Living Green Expo on May 7-8 at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. The Expo is celebrating its 10th year in a bigger and better space at the Fair. When we attended the first Expo (in a cold and windy tent), our daughter was only a few months old and Cathy carried her all day in a baby carrier while we talked to people. It's great to see the environmental movement grow along side our beautiful daughter! The Living Green Expo remains our best way of meeting new customers. Stop by and say Hi. (We'll be in the 4-H Buillding this year.)