Logistics & Warehousing

by

Editorial Policy

Published on

Last updated on

importers

[M]uch of the work of importers and exporters as intermediaries is to manage risk and to finance the coffee while it is in transit between countries—often the riskiest segment of the supply chain. Ports and warehouses move massive volumes of freight, operate thousands of tons of machinery, and employ large staffs of frequently rotating employees. Everyone who handles coffee is human, and inevitably something will go wrong. Coffee gets loaded onto the wrong truck, the warehouse floods, the shipping crew goes on strike, or a weather event compromises the coffee while it’s sitting in the port.

Another major role of importers and exporters is to troubleshoot these situations, to file claims with shipping and freight companies and brokers and to make sure that at the end of the day producers and coffee suppliers are paid, and that roasters have beans to meet the week’s volume of orders.

Logistics is all about maneuvering—if the thing that was supposed to show up someplace did not, for whatever reason, what else is close by that can help cover the gap until we find the lost pallet or lost container and redirect it to where it should have been in the first place? This maneuvering involves lots of phone calls, e-mails, and messages back and forth until a plan is devised and carried out.

The more micro-lots that producers labor to prepare and roasters commit to buying, the more work exporters and importers do to consolidate small lots for shipment from, and to, common ports. The more discrete units of coffee, the more paperwork to move the same volume.

All of these processes happen in a common cycle—coffees from different origins are at all different stages of this process at the same time. While coffee is being loaded in Buenaventura headed for Oakland, other coffee from Limon, Costa Rica, is landing in New Jersey, while coffees from Kenya and Sumatra are on the water headed for Hamburg and Antwerp. It’s a bit of a juggling act with lots of moving parts, so every time a container of coffee lands and the arrival sample is approved it is no small victory!

Rachel Northrop is a regular contributor to Fresh Cup, a sales rep for Ally Coffee, and the author of the book, When Coffee Speaks: Stories from and of Latin American Coffeepeople.

Share This Article

Rachel Northrop

Join 7,000+ coffee pros and get top stories, deals, and other industry goodies in your inbox each week.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.


Other Articles You May Like

Decaf Coffee, But Make It Specialty

Decaf coffee has come a long way over the last one hundred years, but can it join the third wave?
by Fionn Pooler | February 16, 2024

Welcoming Home Baristas Into Coffee: “It’s On Us, The Professionals”

More and more folks are finding a passion for coffee through swipes and likes, but who is the home barista? How can roasters and cafes welcome them into the larger coffee community?
by Miranda Haney | January 12, 2024

The Prototype of All Desire: How Processing Can Increase—and Improve—Sweetness in Robusta

Sweetness in coffee is often a marker of quality, but it’s often ignored when talking about Robusta. But small changes at the farm level can be the key to finding more sweetness in Robusta.
by Mikey Rinaldo | December 15, 2023

Latte Art and Alternative Milks: The Good, The Bad, and the Tasty

Milk steaming is a hard-earned skill; alternative milks don’t make this task easier. But with a few tips, you can easily toggle from oat to soy to almond.
by Zoe Stanley-Foreman | December 13, 2023