February 2013 Coffee News

-Off to the Coffee Farm
-2012 Financial Report
-News from Honduras

Off to the Coffee Farm
We didn't have a chance to take our typical trip to Honduras over New Year's this year. So Guillermo is eager to spend some time with his parents (who are in their upper 80s) as well as his brothers and sisters. Plus it is time to have our Velasquez Family Coffee "annual board meeting" (i.e., we want to give our family members an update on how things are going here and talk about the upcoming 2013 harvest). So we're excited to announce that we're heading down to the coffee farm later in February.

2012 Financial Report
Of course, when we're down in Honduras, we hope to soak up a little sun as we escape the frigid temperatures we've been experiencing here in Minnesota the past few weeks. But the real reason for our trip is to talk about the coffee business and give everyone a financial report. We thought we'd give you a little preview.

The good news first! We continue to grow, quite nicely actually. 2012 gross sales were up 22% from 2011 and our customer base continues to grow steadily as well. We topped out with 272 customers in December, our biggest month yet. And in 2012, we were able to send nearly $50,000 down to our family members for their coffee.

While we feel optimistic about the future, there are challenges we are managing. As we reported in our October newsletter, the reality of purchasing large quantities of coffee long before we sell it causes cash flow problems that are common to many fair trade coffee organizations. This was especially challenging the past two years as coffee prices spiked world wide and our debt load rose correspondingly. At the moment coffee prices are lower again, so we plan to renegotiate the price we pay our 3 main coffee farmers (Guillermo's brothers Avilio and Sabel and his brother-in-law Alonso) with the goal of finding a price and payment schedule that is workable for all of us. And we'll be watching closely how the harvest will be impacted by the coffee rust ("la rolla") that is spreading wildly throughout Central America.

Finally, we haven't abandoned the alternative financing ideas we presented in October around inviting customers to prepay for coffee. We just need more time before we are ready to implement them and we have a few other options that we are exploring as well. 

News from Honduras
When we return from Honduras, we'll be sure to share an update of our trip in our March email newsletter. In the meantime, we've found a few interesting articles about the state of things in Honduras (some hopeful and some not so much) and we've linked to them on our Facebook page. Check them out, and while you are there be sure to "like" us and share us with your friends.