how do you source your beans?
We source our coffees from all three of the major growing regions: Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Any coffee we offer for your enjoyment is specialty grade and meets our quality standards for flavor and consistency.
We buy our green beans from farms and cooperatives that are third party certified as Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, and/or Organic. These certifications ensure that our purchases support environmentally sound agriculture, fair wages, and community development at origin and beyond.
what does "traceable" mean?
At ecogrounds, we value transparency, and this includes transparency of our supply chain. We want our coffee drinkers to know where their coffee is grown, how geography impacts flavor, and what is being done at the farm level to promote environmental sustainability and economic growth.
Does this mean we know every farmer growing our coffee? Not yet. A lot of our coffees are grown cooperatively, especially Fair Trade coffees. This means dozens to hundreds of small landowning farmers work together to process and market their beans. What we buy is the product of their group effort. But we build relationships with the cooperative leadership and visit a selection of their producing farms to ensure open communication.
Large coffee farms rely on seasonal workers to help pick and process coffee cherries. We may not get to meet everyone who helps make our coffee so wonderful, but we do check the books and housing to ensure that everyone is paid fairly and lives well while producing our beans.
are your blends traceable, or just the single origin beans?
Of course they are!
Single origin beans are great for highlighting distinct flavors unique to one farm or cooperative. We can tell very specific stories about how these beans are grown and the community impact our purchase makes.
Blends are produced with just as much thought and care. Blends allow us to create coffees with great depth and complexity, combining the notes of various regions. Blends are also great for creating consistent flavor profiles. Our coffees are seasonal, and do change with the time of year. We share the farms and cooperatives that are included throughout the year, knowing that these sources may change so that your coffee experience doesn’t.
buying ecogrounds coffee
can i buy ecogrounds coffee online?
Soon. The coffee bags our cafés use are 100% recyclable, and we are in the process of developing 100% recyclable bags for consumer purchase. We are in the final stages and will launch on our e-commerce store as soon as possible. Stay tuned for updates.
why recyclable bags?
Most coffee bags end up in landfills. However, we believe that space for waste is wasted space. In an effort to reduce waste, the coffee bags our cafés use are 100% recyclable. We provide our cafés with a means to return the bags to us, and the empty bags are re-purposed into Trex boards where they receive a new life as furniture, decking, playground equipment and other useful items. Soon, we will have consumer bags that will also be 100% recyclable.
We’ve researched several ways to remove waste from coffee, and we’ve learned a lot on our journey. One thing is that a lot of “biodegradable” packaging isn’t that great in preserving freshness and quality, and most of these bags are not 100% biodegradable. Our 100% recyclable bags create zero waste while preserving the freshness and quality of the coffee.
why return coffee bags?
While the plastic we use is recyclable, sorting trash and recyclables is more challenging than you may think. Local recyclers may not know to remove our bags from the waste stream. Sending the bags back to us is the surest way to know they’ll never go to a landfill
We made recycling easy for our cafes by giving them pre-paid return labels in the box we send their coffee in. They simply place their empty bags back in the box and send them back to us. When our retail coffee bags are available, there will be directions for how to recycle your bags via pre-paid postage.
serving ecogrounds coffee
how can I serve ecogrounds coffee at my business?
We love partnering with businesses that share our values. If you’re committed to serving the finest quality coffee and minimizing your environmental impact, we want to talk to you.
Whether you need coffee for your university or a full espresso bar at your office, we have a program to meet your needs. Please call our Customer Care Team to be matched with one of our coffee consultants. 877.528.2289. We’ll make coffee better, together!
about ecogrounds
how does ecogrounds define sustainability?
We define sustainability as:
meeting today’s needs without compromising resources for the future
We plan to meet this by supporting agricultural and economic practices that ensure coffee communities will thrive for generations. Our business decisions beyond the farm are focused on creating a greener, cleaner, and fairer coffee industry.
