At Fresh Cup, we believe the coffee industry needs a rebalancing of value. One that would require meaningful change in how we manage teams, source coffee, serve customers, build businesses, and support communities.
Therefore, our editorial mission is to equip readers with the knowledge, skills, and inspiration to build businesses that create shared value in the industry.
Editorial Values
Fresh Cup is primarily a trade publication for business owners and professionals working in retail settings—specifically coffee shops, roasteries, and any other setting where coffee is served.
We create content shaped by thought leadership with practical application in mind. We carry with us an underlying optimism for the potential of a sustainable and equitable industry and a curiosity about how we get there.
We hold firm expectations that editorial ideas, creative direction, reporting, angles, and other decisions in our stories come from the people working on them, namely our writers and editorial team.
We cannot accept a pitch or draft that is wholly or largely written by AI. This includes story ideas generated from a prompt, drafts you didn’t substantially write yourself, and quotes, sources, or facts you have not personally verified.
Sponsored Content
Fresh Cup publishes sponsored content that is researched and written by the Fresh Cup team, not given to us by sponsors directly. We collaborate with sponsors to find story concepts and relevant sources, but Fresh Cup owns the quality, trustworthiness, and final say over the final editorial.
This enables value-aligned businesses to support Fresh Cup journalism while engaging in industry conversations and promoting their products in authentic ways that serve our audience and preserve our readers’ trust.
No matter how sponsored content is conceptualized and written, sponsored content will never be at odds with our values. We apply the same standards of high-quality journalism to all of our content.
All sponsored articles are clearly identified at the top of each article. We do not consider sponsor status in our regular editorial workflows, though sponsors may appear as references or sources when appropriate. This transparency is vital to maintain trust between Fresh Cup, our sponsors, and our readers.
Affiliate Partnerships
We carefully evaluate and select affiliate partners based on the quality of their offering and alignment with the Fresh Cup mission. We believe affiliate partnerships are an implicit recommendation, so we will never join a partnership with products or services that we do not believe are of good quality and value. At Fresh Cup, we hold our responsibility to educate and empower to the highest standards, and as a result, affiliate partnerships are few and far-between. If you buy a product or service from an affiliate partner, Fresh Cup may receive a commission.