What Coffee Business Owners Learned About Pricing, Data, and Logistics This Week
Webinar Replay
USWIC's panel discussion, "Building Resilient Coffee Businesses: Strategies Across the Value Chain," brought together five voices from across the industry, from production to roasting, retail, data, and import logistics. The conversation covered what resilience actually looks like when tariffs, climate change, and shipping delays are part of the daily reality of running a coffee business.
Here's what stood out.
Resilience Starts at Origin
Ana Maria Donneys of Café Primitivo, representing IWCA Colombia, framed resilience as something that begins with the relationship between producer and roaster. Long-term, direct sourcing relationships give both sides room to support each other when market conditions shift, rather than treating every transaction as a one-off. She also pointed to the role organizations like IWCA play for women producers in Colombia specifically: networking and education that translate into real visibility and access to global markets. For Donneys, continuous education on quality and business management isn't optional. It's part of what lets producers navigate economic pressure without losing ground.
Culture and Consistency at the Retail Level
Areli Barrera Grodski of Little Waves Coffee approached resilience from the retail and leadership side. Her focus centered on people: building a business culture that puts employees and community first, and treating equity as a foundation for a stronger, more loyal team rather than an add-on. She also spoke to the importance of adaptive leadership, the ability to change how a business operates when circumstances demand it, paired with transparency about what's actually happening internally. For Barrera Grodski, resilience ultimately comes down to alignment: a business's daily decisions, from sourcing to customer interaction, have to reflect the values it claims to hold.
Pricing Is a Communication Problem, Not Just a Math Problem
Katherine Morris, who runs Cherry Coffee, has raised prices more than once and said the process is rarely as painful as business owners fear it will be.
Her approach starts before the announcement goes out. She puts herself through the hard decision-making first, then translates the increase into terms a customer actually feels: an extra few cents per shot, rather than an abstract percentage. That framing, she said, makes a $15 bag of coffee "not look as scary anymore."
Morris also reflected on what she'd do differently if she were starting over. Her answer wasn't about pricing or operations. It was about relationships.
"I wish I would have engaged and maintained relationships with other business owners in this industry," she said. "It's so easy to get wrapped up in the hustle and just not respond to that email, or not grab drinks, or not join a coffee cupping."
Her advice to anyone earlier in their career: stay curious. Go to events. Watch industry resources on YouTube. Reach out to people, and don't take it personally when they're too busy to respond right away.
Data-Driven Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means
Cheryl Hung, who recently launched a company focused on coffee industry data, made a case for data-driven decision making that pushed back on a common assumption: that it requires large dashboards and complex spreadsheets.
Her real argument was simpler. The specialty coffee industry tends to talk about "the coffee consumer" as if that's one person. It isn't.
"There isn't just one average coffee consumer," Hung said. "There's a lot more coffee professionals and coffee consumers out there than we give credit for. My message would be to stop treating the coffee consumer as one person."
Her point extended across the value chain, not just to retailers. Understanding what specific consumer segments value, and what they're willing to pay for it, gives roasters, importers, and producers a stronger case for pricing coffee at its real value, and getting more of that value back to producers.
Getting Coffee From Origin to Roaster Is Harder Than It Looks
Colleen Walsh of Covoya Specialty Coffee gave a detailed look at the logistics side of the business, and the numbers were sobering. By her estimate, only about half to sixty percent of shipments move smoothly from booking to arrival. The rest run into friction: delayed bookings, canceled sailings, customs exams that hold containers at port for weeks, and carriers that simply decide not to call at a port that trip.
Walsh described the trade-off roasters and importers face constantly: faster or cheaper. Reliable carriers cost more, sometimes thousands of dollars more, but they show up. Less reliable carriers are cheaper until they aren't there when you need them.
For small producers, the friction often starts even earlier. Without the volume to fill a container on their own, many rely on co-ops or consolidators to get their coffee to port at all. Walsh spoke to the value of working directly with these producers, walking them through documentation and shipping requirements they may not have encountered before.
"I like working with the smaller producers and feeling like we're helping them, instead of just buying from huge farms and keeping the cogs going," she said. "Everybody should benefit."
Closing Thoughts
Closing out the session, board member Launtia thanked the panelists and attendees for showing up and sharing knowledge openly. "There's so much that we need to learn, and there's so much that we don't know," she said. "Collaborating and networking is the best way to get the job done."