Spotlight: Planet Bean Coffee

Fresh Cup

June 2008

Superlative alert: Planet Bean makes the best cup o’ Joe around. That is, according to the propaganda pasted on their website. So how does a small-scale coffeehouse tucked in a mid-sized southern Ontario university (slash) growing sub-division town back up such a seemingly arrogant claim? By brewing up an almost nonpareiled blend of social, environmental and production business models.

 Over a decade ago Guelph native Bill Barrett was mucking around in the social justice and environmental movement where he harnessed a particular interest in tropical deforestation. From this, he learned of the importance of shade-grown coffee as a means of keeping the world’s lungs breathing with fair trade doing its part for economic justice. The urge to experiment with economic democracy then drove him to pursue involvement in worker co-operatives. “I was working at one in Guelph and at the time there was a struggling café down the street that was also a worker co-op. So I approached them and said, hey, let’s work together and buy a roaster to start selling organic, fair trade coffee,” says Barrett. Guelph’s first gourmet coffee roaster was born.

Fast forward ten years and Planet Bean has evolved at a staggering pace. Starting as a humble wholesaler, today there are two bustling retail cafés; one next to its high-tech roasting operation in the city's expanding east side and the other operating out of a delightful old stone commercial building in the heart of downtown. And all this has been accomplished by bucking the archetypal business model. 

All in the Family

Structured as a worker co-operative, Planet Bean has seven worker owners and 22 total full and part-time employees. After being employed full-time as a barista, roaster or what have you for one year; Barrett says you are offered membership. “This essentially means that you buy a member share for a buck then make an equity investment at which point you are free to participate in the overall ownership of Planet Bean. This includes macro decision-making and equal profit sharing.” “The outcome is that everyone knows what’s going on and where the business is headed. Exactly what we strive for.”

Café manager and part owner Kerry Hack, 28, sees group ownership as a way to protect against poor decisions. “It’s not one person making a mistake. It’s seven people thinking about problems very carefully,” she says. Barrett admits that such a structure can bring about tension among the members, but proudly views this as a positive. Why? Because, “tension can create new innovations.”

One such innovation was the desire to become the first roaster in Canada to sign onto the Ethiopian Trademarking and Licensing Initiative for the use of Yirgacheffe, Sidamo and Harar coffee origin names. “Who has the right to control the use of that organic material and biologic history was for me the fundamental debate surrounding this initiative,” Barrett explains. “They’re the one’s who developed those beans so, yes, they are justified in wanting the rights to their own coffee origins.” Peru, Columbia, Guatemala, Mexico and Sumatra are Planet Bean’s other contributors which make up their fifteen 100% organic, fair trade flavors. Their biggest goodie-two-shoes initiative to date may be the involvement with Café Femenino.

A medium roast with hints of caramel and chocolate, Café Femenino originates from women’s co-operatives in northern Peru. According to Barrett, it creates a place where rural women at great risk of sexual and physical abuse can get together, grow coffee, sell it directly to them at a price higher than that mandated by fair trade and keep all the profits. Back home, Planet Bean extends this benevolentness by donating hundreds of pounds of Café Femenino to local women’s crisis shelters. “When the women in Peru found out that this type of abuse also happens elsewhere, they communicated to us that they preferred this venture benefit those women as well where the coffee is being consumed.” It’s a win-win situation that has resulted in strong sales of the coffee among customers of the fairer sex.

Raising The Bar

Barrett and company understand that no matter how many feel-good stories are postured on the walls, a lackluster cup is going to leave the seats empty. To keep the door revolving, they currently employ the gourmet basket – the preferred brewing technology of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, which uses more coffee per brew resulting in a bigger flavor wallop. An on-site roaster and regular cupping go a long way in maintaining quality control. One concern, though, is Guelph’s water supply which is heavily chlorinated. To combat this, carbon filters are employed to bid adieu to chlorine that reacts with coffee to produce an unwelcome medicinal flavor. Further, all coffees are guaranteed to have been roasted in small batches no longer than two days out to maintain peak freshness. “Because of our commitment to freshness, we only distribute coffee to cafes and supermarket wholesale customers within Ontario,” says Barrett.

A sweet tooth can be satisfied by any number of fair trade chocolates sourced from fellow Canadian co-operatives (part of that whole help each other out motto thing) or palate-titillating cakes and muffins provided by a nearby baker who Planet Bean is helping convert to organic.

Proving that sustainable and profitable can be chums, not foes; good times have been abundant at Planet Bean. With 200 wholesale customers and counting, Barrett says the company has been growing like a weed with an overall sales increase of 40 percent in 2007. Half of their current staff has been hired in the last year to handle the increased demand for a responsible choice. Ownership could be about to swell. Roast master Dave Barrett, 28, was putting in 14-hour days on their previous diminutive roaster. This has now been reduced to a more human-like eight with the recent purchase of a mighty L25 Probat machine that can better manage the company’s distribution growth. The piles of paperwork required to certify their whole production facility as organic is currently being sorted out and fair trade, organic cotton T-shirts from India are about to head in the door.

Nevertheless, Bill admits that the biggest obstacle to future growth is raising capital. As a co-operative business it doesn’t have access to the stock market and so forth which the corporate world exploits to raise financing.  “We need to find investors that recognize the importance of social return. A place where you can make an ethical investment.”

Helping Hand

Planet Bean have taken their good fortunes and turned it towards an altruistic goal – supporting the community and environment. Proudly local and perhaps greener than the new, and improved Al Gore, home-grown art for sale adorns walls at both modest cafes and forgoing a company gas guzzler, they turn instead to a car co-op only when needed to zip employees around town. This in turns supports a neighborhood business and encourages staff to make use of bicycles whenever possible - something that Planet Bean hopes to subsidize the purchase of in the future. The bicycle rack out front is often as crowded as the parking lot.

Post-consumer waste makes up the insulating component of their cups and only re-usable containers are employed to transport beans to retail customers. “It’s a simple thing that can prevent thousands of foil-lined bags ending up in landfills.” Barrett explains. What’s more, Planet Bean recently partnered with a local non-profit to build and sell rain barrels to help spread the word of water conservation and efficiency. “I dream of the day we can afford to have a roof-top water harvesting system here to flush our toilets,” Barrett says brightly. Down the road they’re looking to host an event to discuss the importance of shade-grown coffee with respect to the health of migratory birds. Barrett wants Planet Bean to become a tool for customers to learn about ecological sustainability and engage in useful dialogue pertaining to social justice.

“Planet Bean will not only be the place to get coffee but the place to get ideas,” Barrett believes. As a co-operative, part of their business structure mandate is care for the community. “It is up to us to figure out ways to do this in an authentic and relevant manner.” Regardless, the growing legion of regulars heading indoors to escape Guelph’s long, algid winter turn to this company of humble beginnings to pour them a delicious product, served with respect, creativity and passion.