BY HOWARD BRYMAN or billions of people F around the world Micro every morning, life begins with coffee. For millions of people in farming communities between the tropics of of the Cancer and Capricorn, life depends on Roaster Year coffee. Yet for Amavida Coffee Roasters, Barista Coby McGraw slinging lattes at Amavida’s St. Andrews cafe in Panama Beach, Florida. | Photo by life isn’t just about coffee; it’s about Jack Gardner people. Amavida founders Dan and Sally Bailey and their crew of roasters, THE WINNER’S STATS AMAVIDA COFFEE ROASTERS baristas, creatives, technicians and administrators are not only cognizant of the fact that coffee is a delicate, natural product that changes lives at every link along the chain from coffee farm to coffee shop—they are motivated by it. As the company name implies ESTABLISHED | 2004 (“ama vida” is Spanish for “love life”), these coffee people love the LOCATION | great balancing act of a life in coffee, keeping the best interests of Santa Rosa Beach, Florida every stakeholder in mind while stewarding the bean from farm to EMPLOYEES | 44 (full-time, part-time and seasonal) cup. LEADERSHIP | Founded 13 years ago on the Florida Panhandle, the business Dan and Sally Bailey, founders now includes three cafes on the Gulf Coast, with another slated RETAIL LOCATIONS | Three (a fourth is opening in to open in March 2018, along with a roastery and headquarters in March 2018) Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. That means Amavida must navigate both ROASTERS (MACHINES) | A Diedrich IR-24 and a the natural ebb and flow of patronage in a tourism-fueled area as Loring S35 Kestrel well as the ramifications of larger dips in the economy. “When the economy goes south, here we see quite a bit of ROASTING OUTPUT | 90,000 pounds (2016 total) impact. It’s like a double whammy,” says Dan Bailey, who takes pride WEBSITE | amavida.com in Amavida’s resilience. “If somebody can survive in a business down here in this market, they can survive anywhere. It’s really challenging, and on top of that, we have risks like hurricanes.” When the Baileys agreed that Dan would exit his corporate job to scale his coffee roasting passion into a business, they envisioned a business that would involve and support the family while serving and supporting their local community. And yet, as he stepped up from a hot-air popcorn popper to a 3-kilo Diedrich roaster, studied the industry and attended specialty coffee-focused events, it became clear it wasn’t only small towns along the Gulf Coast that could benefit from a well-run coffee roasting business. STORIES IN THE BEANS “I’m roasting the coffee, so I get to tell the story of the coffee, and it’s Director of Coffee Martin Trejo roasting with Cropster. | Photo by AMAVIDA COFFEE ROASTERS Members of the Amavida Coffee Roasters team at the company’s new headquarters in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. really interesting,” says Martin Trejo, Amavida’s director of coffee, Jack Gardner Photo by Jack Gardner CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 22 November | December 2017 23 (continued) Micro Roaster of the Year AMAVIDA COFFEE ROASTERS Amavida coffee-producing partners in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a visit to support Project Congo. | Photo courtesy of On the Ground Global who transitioned from the role of training coordinator into full-time roaster more than three years ago. Trejo profiles coffees to bring out their most origin-indicative characteristics. He has found Congolese coffees particularly engaging, and recalls the beginning of Amavida’s relationship with one young cooperative to which the company has remained loyal. “The first year we got it, we had a hard time using it,” he says of the co-op’s coffee. “We wanted to buy the coffee to support the farmers, but at the same time, it wasn’t very good. It was kind of all over the place. From bag to bag, it was spotty, and that’s what we expected because they had only been producing coffee for a few years.” The quality of the coffee has skyrocketed since the partnership began, he adds. Jonathan Williams—a former Amavida barista, now a cafe owner and client of the company—brewing on an Alpha Dominche machine at the “Each year, through the support of On the Ground, through the Amavida cafe in Seaside, Florida. | Photo by Jack Gardner support of the people that had been buying their coffee, they really increased their productivity and the quality of the product, and it’s pretty incredible to be a part of that,” he says. On the Ground Global (OTG) is a nonprofit organization that coordinates and supports community development and sustainability initiatives in coffee-growing regions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mexico, Ethiopia and other countries. Amavida got involved with OTG in 2011 when the nonprofit launched Project Ethiopia, which was supported by Cooperative Coffees. (Cooperative Coffees is a group of roasters that imports coffee directly from small-scale farms and cooperatives; Amavida became a member in 2006.) Project Ethiopia raised roughly $300,000 with its Run Across Ethiopia, for which 16 ultra- marathoners ran 400 kilometers (almost 250 miles) in 11 days. Sally Bailey took daughter Caroline, then 10 years old, on a Cooperative Coffees origin trip that occurred in conjunction with the Amavida founder and CEO Dan Bailey visiting coffee producers at Maya project. Vinic co-op in Chiapas, Mexico. | Photo by Jack Gardner CONTINUED ON PAGE 26 24 November | December 2017 25 Micro Roaster of the Year (continued) AMAVIDA COFFEE ROASTERS “[We] got to witness the run and go to all the farming both a certified B Corporation and a Florida Benefit Corporation, communities, and meet them and learn their struggles,” Sally two designations that attest to its commitment to measure and recalls. manage its social and environmental impact. It even banks with Inspired by that experience, Amavida has since joined the another certified B Corp, the local, independent First Green Bank. board of OTG and routinely sources coffees through its initiatives, As such, Amavida is driven not only to make a positive impact at including the Congolese coffee Trejo mentioned. origin, but also to be a responsible steward of the environment “It’s very much integrated into our supply chain,” says Dan, and make positive impacts on the communities it calls home. adding, “There’s a lot of people doing great work [at origin]. I hope “Certainly farmers, on our coffee side, are very important to other people may see what we’re seeing on the other side, which us. We want to create impact, but we also have a responsibility in is that we’ve got to do more for growers than just buying their our own community,” says Dan, who works with local schools to coffee. We have to find alternate solutions. I don’t mean that in a educate students on environmental issues. “Real change comes way that we’re enabling them. I’m looking at real creative ways to with working with schools, particularly with the generations that create impact in a community that we’re working with. I think that’s are following.” everybody’s challenge that works with coffee, that really works with To that end, Amavida partnered with a local school, The it in a serious way and cares.” Ohana Institute, on a social entrepreneurship program through which a group of high school students conceptualized and QUANTIFYING CORPORATE IMPACT designed their own nonprofit coffee company. The project culminated in an actual roasted coffee product, with all proceeds The inclination to seize opportunities to drive positive change is supporting clean water initiatives in Chiapas, Mexico. The interwoven into the very fabric of Amavida Coffee. The company is students traveled to Chiapas with an Amavida team, making personal connections with their supply chain. Dan also brings special guests into his daughter’s school on a quarterly basis to speak about issues pertaining to sustainability, such as how to protect local clean-water sources and ecosystems, and how to deal with waste. All Amavida cafes, offices and the roastery are powered by renewable wind energy, and the company’s burlap sacks, spent grounds and chaff are offered to the community free of charge for gardening and composting. While the local county government and taxpayers have yet to prioritize recycling as an essential public service, Amavida recognizes the critical importance of such programs, so it collects all of its own paper and cardboard recyclables and delivers them to a nearby recycling center. When Amavida began using only World Centric paper Amavida’s business development manager, Adrian Edge, playing ukulele products—100 percent compostable and made by a fellow with children in Chiapas, Mexico, during a delegation trip with On the certified B Corporation that’s carbon neutral and donates 25 Ground Global. | Photo by Jack Gardner percent of its profits to progressive causes—Dan convinced other local businesses to do the same. Amavida now serves as a regional distributor for the company. Jennifer Pawlik, program manager and benefit officer for Amavida, compiles a sustainability report for the company every year, documenting its achievements and ongoing efforts to continuously improve its environmental impact. This year, she notes, the company can finally report that it uses 100 percent local, organic milk. That’s been listed as a challenge for several years because, until recently, there have been local options and organic options, but never a milk option that was both. In seeking out a local, organic milk, Amavida “helped create a route and a market among other businesses in the area,” Pawlik says.