Surviving Coffee Price Chaos as a ‘Wartime CEO’ With Anne Djerai of Metropolis Coffee

🟡 This transcript is AI-generated. There may be errors.

Garrett Oden (00:01.312)
Alright, hi Anne, welcome to the podcast.

Anne Djerai (00:04.189)
Hi Garrett, thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.

Garrett Oden (00:08.354)
Yes, this is great. I’ve been really looking forward to this. So I see Metropolis as a more mature specialty coffee company and you’ve been open that even for established companies, 2024 was difficult and 2025 is shaping up to be difficult too. And I’ve really appreciated your openness on LinkedIn. It mainly is where I’ve encountered you. And I knew I had to get you on the podcast to…

to talk some of this through because there’s a lot that needs discussing more publicly than has been in the past.

Anne Djerai (00:39.261)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I’m thrilled to talk about, well, some of the stuff isn’t very thrilling, but I’m happy to talk about our experience and hopefully, you know, other roasters, other companies that are going through this right now will be able to, you know, align with it a little bit.

Garrett Oden (00:56.014)
Absolutely. Well, there’s this quote that I saw that you posted about a month ago. You were reading a book to your son, I think it was the context, and in there was this quote from Charles Darwin. It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It’s the one that is most responsive to change. Can you tell me why this resonated so much with you?

Anne Djerai (01:19.451)
It was the well, first of all, it’s a great quote, and it’s something that you should remember all the time, right? The only constant in life has changed. I was in a pretty dark place that day, and my son, you saw kind of my I posted about really being into World War. He’s really into World War two right now, and it’s kind of made me revisit it. So we were reading a World War two book and they were talking about generals. And so this quote came up and I had really been struggling with some

difficult decisions that day. And I was just like, oh man, I don’t want to do this. And I don’t want to make this shift. And I don’t want to make this change. I don’t want to tell this person that thing. And then when I saw it, it just popped out at me because it was that reminder that I needed. It was right before bedtime, you know, the end of the day. And I was like, yeah, you’re going to have to change. And you used to be good at this. So you’re still going to be good at this.

things don’t stay the same and we get so comfortable in our ruts and our routines and they provide us comfort, right? So getting comfortable being uncomfortable has been a big part of my last year and a half. I started working out for the first time really in my adult life. I’ve been a single parent so I’ve had to be very comfortable being uncomfortable in that role as well. And then having to make really tough decisions as a CEO.

So just that day, it really resonated with me. I actually, like I’ve been seeing more and more change quotes just after I posted that and after I kind of engaged with it, because it was like, I need that constant reminder. Because the market’s changing right now. The industry’s changing. And it’s changing so quickly.

Garrett Oden (03:00.458)
Absolutely. Do you have any sort of strategic frameworks or ways that you think about responding to change and bonus points if you can make it tangible with the story?

Anne Djerai (03:11.365)
Hmm. Okay. Well, I think anybody here would say that my first reaction is always like, I need a day. So something new information comes in or I know that I’m going to have to make a tough decision that is going to change our business. And I just I need like a day. So I’ll, you know, I have my process, I call my mom, I do a little writing, I think, try to think through kind of how it could go.

And then I always do like worst case scenario. I freak myself out, and then I’m fine. Because maybe it won’t be the worst case scenario. Usually it’s not. And then I try to take it off my worry register altogether. I mean, we just had a situation with defaults for some of our major contracts for the year. And the first day, I just couldn’t believe that it had happened. And we had just finished our projections and planned our whole year.

And the process there was like, again, I need a day. I need to think this through. I have the information. And then the next day, we’re going to get to work. You can’t make good decisions when you’re still processing information. what I see a lot, especially among people that are still learning to become professionals, is they try to make decisions in the moment with emotions. And it’s really important that you don’t do that. So the process for me is slowing it down.

really getting to why this thing might bother me, why it’s such a pain, then, especially if it’s a negative change, kind of working from there. Things are usually not as bad as you think they are, and you usually can navigate them, but it challenges an opportunity, and I really believe that.

Garrett Oden (04:59.638)
I like that practice of sort of letting your emotions have the day in the sun and acknowledging them upfront versus trying to dig them way down and stuff them away. that seems like a good practice.

Anne Djerai (05:10.057)
Yeah, we’re people first, you know.

Garrett Oden (05:15.086)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s talk about your role as CEO. So you joined Metropolis, I think you said 2015, 2019? 2019. And you came in in a sales related role, or strategic partnerships, but you’ve moved to CEO in 2022. So can you tell me a little bit about that journey?

Anne Djerai (05:25.609)
No, 2019, I got into the industry in 2015. Yep.

Anne Djerai (05:41.577)
Yeah, absolutely. I came on board to Metropolis after being a distributor for Metropolis through Canteen. Metropolis does a lot of office coffee and vending stuff with Canteen, and they always have. I was looking for something new. I had moved back home, which is southwestern Indiana, after kind of a bad divorce. And I was not really happy there. Great company where I worked, but I

It just wasn’t specialty coffee, and I knew that there wasn’t much room for growth. So when I came on board with Tony and Jeff and the team, they were looking for new ways to grow. I had a lot of friends, a lot of partnerships. So I put a plan together, and they hired me. And then COVID hit. So I was on board in September of 2019. We had all these great plans. And then I think it’s five years ago this week, COVID hit, and the game changed.

was pretty sure I was going to lose my job. But no, they wanted to keep salespeople, which in hindsight, very smart. We did keep the sales team. And kind of as the year progressed, it became really clear. Have you ever heard that saying, when the tide comes in, you see who’s been swimming naked? We used the opportunity of COVID to clean house. And as we cleaned house, Tony, Jeff, and I started.

Garrett Oden (06:57.504)
Yeah. Yep.

Anne Djerai (07:06.323)
kind of implementing changes that we wanted to see in the company. was like the best time to do it. We had a little government money and that’s what we did. And I just climbed the ladder each step that, you know, I’m pretty sure after experiences in the past, Tony and Jeff were a little bit weary of having a C-suite again, but you know, they gave me that title and that role and really said, Tony always says, you’re the boss, applesauce.

And it means a lot to me because our owners are very, you know, they’re still involved in the business, but they don’t run it. And they let me make decisions and just having that kind of, you know, it was in some ways a very fast progression, but for a company of this size, it was very measured. And I take it seriously. I, know, it’s a lifestyle running a coffee company in Chicago. And I think they recognize that. And it’s a lifestyle I happen to really like.

Garrett Oden (07:57.442)
Yeah. Well, what’s changed since 2022 since you became CEO? I suspect that things have not gone exactly like you thought they might. So, you know, what have you seen?

Anne Djerai (08:09.714)
in terms of our company or the market or everything.

Garrett Oden (08:13.624)
Both, but especially in terms of how the markets affected Metropolis.

Anne Djerai (08:17.137)
Hmm. Yeah, I think like most specialty coffee roasters, mean, Metropolis is probably the biggest of the small. We’re kind of bordering on that medium-sized roaster. Roast about a million pounds a year. We were in this framework of giving away equipment and then return on, you know, putting an ROI model together and getting our money back that way and going after small accounts, cold calling cafes, restaurants, that type of thing.

And so it worked for a while, but we had a lot of grandfathered in customers. We’ve been around for 21 years. Really, of course, love our customers, but it was one of those things where if we wanted to really grow, we had to adapt and the market started changing too. I feel like we were so stuck in that idea of one, two and three waves, right? Third wave, coffee. Is there a fourth wave? Is there a fifth wave? And we were also in that framework.

As the market has, you know, the market has kind of crunched the framework specifically in the last year, I feel like. But we’ve kind of gone from this idea of, you know, made to order coffee, you know, no inventory, you know, where it’s roast to order. And we’ve we’ve moved kind of down a little bit to where we’re kind of more in that commercial or commodity market, even for specialty. So I think that, you know, we were already heading that way. We brought on capsules.

We brought on frac packs. We moved some of our stuff to inventory. We really invested in grocery. So we were already a little bit ahead of the game because we did that. But the market is now kind of catching up with what we were doing. really do think in the last specifically three years, we’re seeing a shift from specialty and commercial coffee kind of converging a little bit. We’re going after the same business.

And the market now kind of all things being equal, everybody is on a very similar playing field in terms of coffee prices. It’s just gonna continue going this way. I really think people that are positioned in the middle like Metropolis, companies like Metropolis are going to maybe do well with that. Because we were already kind of thinking this way anyway.

Garrett Oden (10:34.99)
This is really interesting and you noted this as one of your takeaways from the NCA event you were just at. I think you said something like the distinctions between specialty and commodity are starting to disappear and they’re being chipped away. And it’s interesting you mentioned pods, fracpacks, things that at one point it seemed like specialty roasters were dead set against and that just does not seem to be the case anymore. What else does it look like for these distinctions to be chiseled away at?

Anne Djerai (11:05.961)
I think that sustainability is a big one, but it’s even becoming a big one for larger coffee roasters. So another distinction was, you know, kind of the mission of the company. And you see big companies really working on their ESG as well. Now, of course, it’s harder for them because they have to overdo, you know, they have to change really kind of entrenched buying practices.

But that’s one that I see. There’s an emphasis on that as well. There’s more transparency about essentially what is slave wage coffee. And I see there being more regenerative ag and all these different things that are becoming more prevalent, even with commercial roasters, helps narrow the gap. And then the idea of local. mean, we were put in a local box for a long time.

I don’t necessarily, mean look at companies like La Cologne who’ve managed to feel local in every city they’re in. And they’re like a prime example of what happens when a specialty roaster gets big and kind of they keep their practices of being a specialty, but for the most part, but they also are now operating like a massive macro roaster. So.

You know, to me, those trends really indicate that the three pillars of specialty, local, made to order, and sustainable are kind of becoming maybe either obsolete or more for everyone. also, I’ll say the culture of coffee is changing. I mean, we spent a long time telling people that coffee needs to be consumed within a week of roast, and that coffee should be a light roast, and that coffee should be, it should be whole bean.

know, 15 minutes before you drink it. And it should be a pour over and all these different things. And I think that gets boring. And I think it’s very prescriptive. And I think it’s snobby. I don’t think it’s a, I don’t, you know, I live in Chicago, very liberal city. And like, I don’t see it as much as I used to either. I see more Mondo drinks and syrups and things people might actually, you know, it’s not just a hobby, it’s a lifestyle.

Garrett Oden (13:22.35)
Absolutely. Well, let’s go back to 2024. So was there a point where you, you you saw something happening and you thought this is not going to be the kind of year that we had projected it would be.

Anne Djerai (13:35.677)
Yeah, was really at the end of the summer. I can’t remember which month exactly it was, but even just the whispers of port delays because of the longshoreman strike caused port delays. So I think it was only three days. It wasn’t much, but we had all these great contracts ready for some large, we had gotten into Costco and we were very excited and it was a huge order and I had to buy a spot to

Garrett Oden (13:51.021)
Hmm.

Anne Djerai (14:05.459)
fill Costco because I couldn’t get my containers in. I mean, we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then I started seeing shipping costs go up and a lot of speculation with the election and it really started, it turned on its head in October, which is always our most profitable month. I think that’s the case for a lot of companies like us that are really in with the universities and it’s getting colder outside. you know, and

When I saw that month, with our sales being so great and just being eaten up by cogs, I knew. I was like, dang it. Because for a lot of us in specialty coffee, just based on talking to folks, we don’t make a lot of money. So we rely on sometimes certain months to really pull the whole year through. Our margins are notoriously bad, unlike commercial coffee, where their margins are really good.

you know, at that moment I knew like, gosh, I was counting on this month to make the year really great. I mean, we still came out okay, but it could have been a lot better.

Garrett Oden (15:16.495)
What does responding to change look like in that situation? How did you realign your expectations and make adjustments as the year went on?

Anne Djerai (15:25.705)
Well, I think I drive everybody crazy with my projections and my budgeting. I’m financially minded. So the first thing I did was go and update the projections and cried a little bit and said, this is supposed to be our best year. All these great sales. we knew the first thing everybody wants to do is blame it on sales. They’ll say sales aren’t enough.

Garrett Oden (15:41.59)
Yeah.

Anne Djerai (15:50.451)
Right. For our in our case, that was absolutely not true. We were meeting our sales goals. We were meeting our projections. So I had to I had to really thank and prize the wins and accept the bad stuff. I don’t know if other CEOs or leaders are like this, but I take it personally and I think it’s my fault. But I have to like that’s part of that kind of first day process. But then you have to realize, you know, there’s things that you can’t control. There are things maybe you should have planned on better. Learn from it and let’s move on.

So for us it was kind of planning that and then of course, know as the market towards the end of the year started to like, you know more and more we were it was going higher It was it was kind of incremental at the beginning now I mean May I feel like is when people are gonna really start feeling those those price increases more than or cost increases and price increases But I had to like then say how are we going to navigate this and how are we gonna communicate to our customers that we’re gonna have to raise prices we’re gonna have to

you know, out of this in a different way. So it was just kind of, you know, start to finish planning, mourning, praising the winds and communication.

Garrett Oden (16:57.41)
I’ve seen some conflicting perspectives on how to raise prices and what to do. I’ve seen somebody say, give people a forewarning and then do it a few weeks later. I’ve seen some people say, just do it. Don’t make a deal out of it. I don’t know. Do you have an opinion on that?

Anne Djerai (17:14.555)
It’s actually so funny. It’s the first question at NCA that we’re all asking each other. Have you raised prices? What percent and how many times in the last 12 months? Because we’re all trying to ask each other this question because nobody wants to do it. But yes, for smaller customers, know, it’s it’s we I like to give them 30 days. It depends upon the size. Larger customers, you know, they need more turnaround time. They got to update their systems. They might have multiple menus that they’re working with.

You know, it’s kind of more critical for them. With the small customers, I think, you know, in their particular case, you know, they tend to pay more anyway, so you have to be a little bit more sensitive because they are not getting those volume discounts. So it can be more difficult. I mean, it’s something that I worry about a lot too. But for something that I’ve done this year,

is I’ve opened up our, for the first time ever, I’ve just opened up what our costs are. And I tell people, this is how much I’m paying, this is our operational costs, I need to make this in order to come out even. And just opening up, breaking the, what do they call it, the fourth wall with pricing. Actually starting to co-pack really is one of the things that kind of pushed me to start doing that because when you co-pack for large companies, they want to know your costs.

Garrett Oden (18:25.006)
Hmm.

Anne Djerai (18:40.509)
They want to know your margins. And so I started doing that with just our wholesale customers. And people appreciate the transparency and the honesty. I mean, I’m not trying to gouge them. We’re just trying to eek by at this point.

Garrett Oden (18:40.908)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Garrett Oden (18:53.454)
Yeah. Well, what about looking in forward into further into 2025? What do you see on the road ahead? What’s coming up?

Anne Djerai (19:03.943)
Yeah, again, kind of more of that converging of coffee cultures, I think, for sure. I think that people are going to be looking at ways to use less coffee, whether that’s in their cold brew recipes or in their single serve options. I think people are going to be playing a lot with Robusta coffee.

which is exciting. We are. We started last year. I think new origins are going to be opened up. I think you’re going to see more coffees from Indonesia and really a lot more coffee from Vietnam, maybe India as well. And, you know, maybe fewer single origins this year and kind of more of an emphasis on the experience versus the actual thing, which is kind of a trend that we’ve been noticing anyway. So

I think it’s just going to continue. mean, this year, everybody was talking about the market towards the end of last year, but it’s really going to be this spring when roasters that are of any size are going to be feeling the crunch as our old contracts expire and those new ones hit.

Garrett Oden (20:15.64)
Five dollars? Is that gonna happen?

Anne Djerai (20:18.121)
$5 this year. I said that I’m preparing for that if you saw I’m like looking at my my statement right now and I’m preparing for that. At least $5 roasted for a lot of us. So with moisture loss and carry. Yeah.

Garrett Oden (20:38.924)
It’s interesting that I see many folks who seem quite confident that prices will have a meaningful drop at some point, maybe the end of this year or early next year. But I see a lot of people saying, that’s probably not gonna happen. And it seems like it’s in your best interest as a roaster to plan for prices to stay high.

Anne Djerai (21:03.345)
Yeah, I mean you have to it’s so much money and if you if you under project it it doesn’t benefit you So if you’re wrong, then great you make more money, but if you’re right, then you’re in business Yeah, I really I mean they did dip I mean they’re lower than they were a few months ago right now I don’t think it’s gonna stay that way. Of course a lot of it’s gonna be contingent on weather and speculation But I think some of those articles are from people that really want

Garrett Oden (21:15.212)
Yep.

Anne Djerai (21:31.081)
the market to go down so they, you know, there are large enough publications to where they’re, what they put out there does impact maybe how the market functions. But I don’t, I mean, with all the new stuff happening too with tariffs and legislation, it’s all going to raise prices. So I think this might be the new normal. I mean, we might one day get below $4 or just, you know, after, we don’t just use the market price.

But we might get into the low threes for the C price again. But for companies like us, think five is going to be kind of a happy place. I have some FTOs that are coming in at $7. Our decafs are close to eight. I mean, there’s certain things that you invest in that are specifically for our blends that we just we can’t find anything even close to five. So yeah.

Garrett Oden (22:13.55)
Hmm.

Garrett Oden (22:23.843)
Wow, yeah.

You’ve mentioned on LinkedIn that it’s wholesale companies that are struggling now versus it was maybe even harder for retail back in the COVID era. But now it’s a wholesale challenge. I’m curious, why do you say that? What do you see there?

Anne Djerai (22:40.681)
So if you’re selling either direct to consumer online or you’re selling at a cafe, your margins are much better. So if you’ve got, but it’s usually less volume, right, per location. But if you have during COVID, folks that had brick and mortar really suffered a lot. Specifically in Chicago, there was a few roasters that are good friends of mine that, you know, opened many locations right before COVID. And their wholesale business was kind of maybe, you know, less than half of what they did.

And they really struggled, specifically in cities where there were mitigations that were pretty strong. People weren’t sitting in coffee shops. It’s really hard to do to-go coffee in a delivery service type scenario. If it’s cold, it’s not as you know. yeah, I see that. And I also see now that brick and mortar, there’s a lot of drive-throughs. So you can really produce volume. And you’re able to charge so much more than what your actual costs are.

With wholesale, it’s always been close to the line for most of us. And yes, while there’s a lot more volume and poundage involved in wholesale, we’re just not making near as much per ounce per pound as a retailer or a direct-to-consumer site would. I see it with our own. We have two cafes, and we have a pretty robust direct-to-consumer website. I mean, those sales help. They help a lot. So, yeah.

Garrett Oden (24:06.67)
Well, it sounds like the impact of rising coffee costs may not affect your different business lines equally. I’m curious, how does it affect the workshop versus, and maybe could you explain what workshop is versus the wholesale in cafes?

Anne Djerai (24:20.871)
Yeah, so when we brought in the compostable capsule solution to pack it, we knew that our brand wasn’t going to be big enough or robust enough to really grow the capsule the way that needed to. So we went to market as a co-packer. And we already had co-packed whole bean coffee and fraction packs for other companies. So we said, hey, what is the best way that we can propel

what we already do very well and then add this new thing in. So we created the workshop, which, you know, we are we are a competitor to a lot of the companies we co-pack for. And I recognize that, you know, maybe putting up the big metropolis teal on a business card or on my shirt or, you know, when I’m when I’m talking to somebody with samples is not the best way for them to really want to work with you and have you pack their brand. They you definitely have the street cred and they trust you with it.

But you need to detach yourself a little bit. And that’s where the workshop was born from. I mean, we decided this is not much. It doesn’t look like Metropolis. It’s separate. It’s like this idea that you come in and you’re working with us who are true coffee professionals. And you’re a coffee professional. And we’re collaborating. And we’re getting you the best solution. So that’s the long and short of it.

Garrett Oden (25:43.522)
And workshop’s fairly new within the last couple of years as a offering. Cool, okay.

Anne Djerai (25:46.631)
Yeah, yeah, it was we birthed it for SCA just to kind of differentiate the Metropolis brand from our co-packing business.

Garrett Oden (25:55.442)
Okay, so impact of coffee prices, you know, how what do you see that’s different between cafe wholesale and workshop?

Anne Djerai (26:04.019)
So workshop is, it’s been a squeeze for sure because margins are so much tighter. So just starting there, I mean, we expect less now than we ever did for co-packing because we know that our customers have to then either sell it into distribution or sell it to someone else. So we’re really being cognizant of margin wholesale as well. I mean, if just from my experience,

working for several different roasters, I specialty roasters, we were pretty lucky if we made, you know, 55 % gross profit. That’s probably decreased by at least 10%. And since we’re not, you know, the price increases aren’t really commensurate with the market changes, because they can’t be, we’d lose all of our customers. You know, we’re really feeling the squeeze. 45 % is rough. But, you know, on the retail side, brick and mortar,

I mean, there’s, you know, 70 % on a lot of our coffee drinks and that’s pretty good. And we’re able to kind of pass it through because it’s, you know, maybe a quarter, maybe you’re just charging a quarter more a cup or something like that. So it’s, it’s felt less. I mean, at the end of the day, the consumer, me, you, everybody else is going to feel that, but it is, it has become very channel specific. Grocery, by the way, is another one because we’re making room sometimes for two, three players in there.

So I mean, I think specialty coffee, commercial coffee too, but specialty coffee in particular, I mean, it used to be, wow, 15 bucks a bag, dang, that’s a lot, 12 ounces. You’re gonna see 20, 22, and you’re gonna see it soon.

Garrett Oden (27:49.39)
want to ask you about your role as a CEO. What’s it like to be a CEO? This is kind of like wartime for a leader. What’s it like versus peacetime?

Anne Djerai (28:01.929)
I was thinking about this this morning. during peace, I haven’t had a lot of time in peacetime. I really thought up until the end of last summer that I was, wow, I’m going to finally be able to just focus on CEO things, not finances and not operations, efficiencies, and all this stuff. So I had a brief couple moments there where I could take a vacation and you know.

like leave at three o’clock, maybe a day a week or something like that. And I, you know, it was really nice because CEOs are supposed to bring, they’re supposed to be seeing over the horizon with innovation. I firmly believe that you have to innovate. And it was nice to have some clear headspace to be able to do that. And we actually got a lot done in that period of time with the company because I was able to kind of vision out how things look. But you know, when you’re in a situation like we’re in now, which is

It is wartime politics. You’re just living day by day. The stress is palpable. It’s just some days, by the end of the day, I feel like I’ve been under just extreme duress all day. My chest is tight, and I’m not sleeping well. And I think a lot of us feel that way right now. you go back. For me, I went right back into that fight or flight feeling of COVID.

boy, like every day is like, we gonna, know, is this gonna work? Is the plan gonna work? Did we get the numbers right? You know, are we conveying the right message? So yeah, I mean, really it’s peace. So you gotta find your peace where you can get it.

Garrett Oden (29:41.346)
Yeah. you know, are you, are you somebody who delegates a lot or are you more of like a founder mode type person really in the weeds?

Anne Djerai (29:50.953)
Yes, I learned to delegate. I was a new leader when I came on. I’m still a new leader for all intents and purposes, but I delegate now. I have a great executive team. Everybody on my executive team, with the exception of one person, started at an entry-level job at Metropolis, myself included. So we’ve all learned together and grown together as a team. So I can really trust them.

As that trust has been built, I’ve got to step away more and more from the day to day. So I do come back into it as needed, specifically now when hard decisions are having to be made. But yeah, if you’re in the weeds all the time, you can’t do your job. And when it starts to get like that, I to-do list, and I give what I can.

And I, so I can, because my, if I don’t protect my time, the company suffers.

Garrett Oden (30:54.488)
Yeah. Well, how do you nurture a team to be effective in a time like this where there may be, you know, a higher frequency of hard decisions to be made?

Anne Djerai (31:05.673)
That is very hard, Garrett. We are so close. We all worked here through COVID together. My executive team is like, I know everybody hates this, but they really are family to me. I always tell people, if I ever get married again, like the first 10 people that I will invite will be our leadership team. I just love them so much. So yeah, it’s hard because they know me too and they all really care and I really care as well.

So it’s hard to I don’t want to pay. I don’t want panic and I don’t want them to feel the same level of stress because they shouldn’t. But they own it. And being accountable is different than blaming. Right. So, you know, we’re all just trying to be accountable. It’s not perfect. And when it comes to, you know, having to lay off people, it’s probably the most painful thing. And none of us are comfortable with it. None of us like it. And I think in some ways, bigger companies have it better because it’s easy. It’s easier for them. They’re not.

You know, not each person is as critical. You’re not spending as much one-on-one time with them. You know, there’s a lot of remote work, but we’re like a crew. So, you know, it’s something I’m still learning how to do. I really struggle with it. We follow EOS, Geno Wickman’s book for management, Entrepreneurial Operating System. And, you know, his big thing is the foundation of every company is right chair, right person.

So when you get into a right chair wrong person situation or wrong chair right person, it becomes very difficult. Specifically when you really aren’t operate, you don’t have a lot of fluff and whatever and you have to make those difficult decisions. It can be really tough. I’m still learning how to navigate it and I think my team is too.

Garrett Oden (32:53.89)
Yeah. Well, you seem to have a more personal leadership style. You don’t seem like a cold, above the team type leader. Maybe you could tell us about why you think it’s important to orient yourself that way.

Anne Djerai (33:10.301)
Well, I’ve had, I’ve been under really bad leadership in my professional life before, or out of touch leadership. And I just don’t want to be that way. I, I’m a firm believer, just, it comes from my sales approach. My customers become my friends. I, you know, I want to help them and everything I do is in that vein. And the first thing of that is meeting people where they’re at.

So if you’re trying to sit up here and somebody isn’t hearing you or they’re not understanding what you’re saying because of how you’re saying it as a leader, it’s your job to adapt to that. So what I have found is empathy is the best way to lead. mean, even if you’re giving somebody bad news, you can put yourself in their shoes. You can understand how they feel. You probably have a

you know, a personal relationship after a period of years. They know your kids, you know theirs, you know, you know their situation, you go through things together. And so I can’t imagine doing it any other way at my level. Now, sometimes it can be sometimes at the end of the day, I’m kind of emotionally wrought. I’m exhausted. But it’s it’s the thing that kind of I feel like it’s the glue in some ways to the culture here at Metropolis. I mean, it’s just kind of how we live. We’re all empathetic and

We have to, honestly, have to, I always see these things on LinkedIn about like, you don’t have to like the people you work with. I don’t believe that. I think you do. And most companies will try to get rid of the person they don’t like that they work with pretty quickly, right? People try to kind of weed them out. So, yeah.

Garrett Oden (34:42.318)
hahahaha

Garrett Oden (34:55.884)
So I read that you have mixed feelings about the title of CEO. Can you tell me what’s the hang up with the way that that’s framed?

Anne Djerai (35:07.409)
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think anybody really knows what it is, but it seems to wield a lot of power. So. I don’t introduce myself as the CEO, I usually just tell people I work in coffee because I do work in coffee and I sell coffee, you know, it’s it’s pretty simple. I’m very proud of the privilege of getting to lead and run Tony and Jeff’s company, but.

I think it can change the dynamic in a way that doesn’t, it’s not good for legitimate relationships in the business. you know, whether or not it puts a barrier between you and the person you’re talking to, or it makes them treat you differently, it can be a tough one. Specifically for being a woman, my biggest pet peeve is when I’ll be introduced as a CEO and somebody will say to me, congratulations.

I don’t know what that means. Like, congratulations for what? It’s the most confusing statement to me. it’s like a, it’s just like an odd, it’s an odd place to be. I’ll tell you that. I’m fairly young for a CEO and there’s a lot of responsibility and it’s just, it’s been a, it’s been a real shift for me, specifically even lately to kind of, cause it’s just perceived differently by everyone.

Garrett Oden (36:37.07)
Why don’t you tell us what happened? So you had a broker who defaulted. What does that mean and how did that impact you?

Anne Djerai (36:46.545)
Yeah, without getting into too many specifics, I know a lot of us are going through defaults right now. It means essentially that the contracts that we had planned for the year are no longer viable. Whether that means you’re having to pay more or they just don’t exist, right? And that happened to us just a few weeks ago. And it like I had to I had already done my price increase. I had communicated it.

I had done my projections for the year. had decided who I had to lay off, who I was going to keep. You know, I, cause these cuts got to come from somewhere, right? So I had made all these decisions and then I got this news and I thought, gosh, I got to do all this again. And it’s not even about the work. It was the emotional burden of having to make tough decisions anyway. And then it’s like, well, this is like worst case scenario because

The defaults were a substantial part of our planning for the year. We came out, we’re going to be OK. I got some great relationships at NCA and some good deals for us. But it’s also been really hard on our green team. We have a new green buyer. And we have a new roasting manager. One’s QA, one’s QC. And it’s been a real struggle because you rely on one thing and you think it’s going to hold. But it kind of.

as a little earth-shattering, I would say it was akin to losing your biggest client for us. That’s how it felt. Yeah, so again, I heard a lot about it at NCA2 from other people discussing defaults or stories of theft at the farm level. Just very strange times.

Garrett Oden (38:30.382)
So, and when a broker defaults, is that money that you’ve paid that evaporates or is that green coffee sitting somewhere and there’s no longer a truck to pick it up? I’m not sure what tangibly happens in the real world.

Anne Djerai (38:43.497)
So if it’s already here, it doesn’t usually happen when it’s already here. It usually happens at the farm or the dry mill level. maybe the broker locked in pricing before, and they conveyed that to you, and you have a contract for it. a lot of times in agreements, you work with the same people for so long, it’s a handshake until it’s stateside, and then you have the contract.

until it’s on the water and you have this contract. So it’s usually at the farm level. Farmers knew that they could get more even after locking in. So they said, you know what? We’re walking away from this. And it destroys relationships. But in some cases, you can hardly blame them because they have been underpaid or it’s their opportunity to sometimes make hundreds of thousands of dollars. it would be really hard for, I think, anybody to walk away from that, especially after kind of

not getting the margins they needed for so long.

Garrett Oden (39:46.584)
Yeah. Speaking of supply chain, you had an interesting note about AI being an inevitable part of the supply chain and quality control processes. I’m curious, what do you see happening there?

Anne Djerai (40:04.199)
Yeah, so there was a great presentation at National Coffee about AI. There was this app, essentially they had been training the system to grade coffee. And it was kind of helping perfect roasters curves and making sure that blends were being maintained properly. And I know that we work with

We work with a program now that’s great and it helps Cropster, it helps us with that, but this is kind of more intuitive and it makes the job of the green buyer, your QA, QC people much easier. I thought that was cool. But I did talk to Eddie Cola yesterday. He’s the founder of Groundwork Coffee in California.

He was like, I’ve started using AI. And I thought, OK, so it’s some program that might be like this. And he said, no, I actually just ask it questions and sometimes the same question every day to see how the answer is changing and evolving. And I don’t know why, but that just I ask it weird questions. Like my son will be like, what is the flag of Ghana look like? Or how did Hitler die? Or whatever it is, right?

But this was very specific about the market. And I just really liked that. So I was even talking to my team about it. I just think it’s a good idea. Because it might be that you’re getting kind of better market advice because you’re actually seeing the evolution of the advice throughout the week, throughout the days. So yeah, I thought that was cool. But yeah, everybody’s talking about AI, not just for quality. They’re talking about it for systems, accounting, finding better trends, planning better for the market.

you know, all of that. we’re in it. We’re excited.

Garrett Oden (41:54.51)
Do you have any use cases for AI that you like for you professionally or personally?

Anne Djerai (42:00.741)
use cases, like just like how I’m using it.

Garrett Oden (42:04.716)
Yeah, how you’d use it, what it accomplishes for you.

Anne Djerai (42:07.677)
You know, we just adopted Gemini for Google Suite. I really like it. This is kind of new for our team. Some of them are using it, some of them are not. So I’ve been using it for email recapping, because I get an ungodly amount of emails every day. And kind of organizing my inbox, because I feel like that is the biggest issue for people. Also time management.

It’s exciting. We have not as a company employed any of the quality tools yet or any other kind of bigger things. know Tony, our owner, loves it for marketing. He’ll ask it questions. It’ll put together a plan. It’ll talk about capsules or that kind of stuff. But nothing super serious for now, but it’s something we’re definitely going to employ more and more. It’s great.

Garrett Oden (43:03.63)
I found it interesting to feed a chatbot. I tend to like chat GPT or Claude. Ideas that I’m having, thoughts, sometimes I’ll just turn on the voice mode and dictate basically five minutes, a long play on something I’m considering and have it roast my ideas, give me feedback on what’s working or what might not or what might be a weakness or strength based on.

some idea I’ve had for Fresh Cup or for a client. And I’ve really enjoyed having, you know, sort of, you know, somebody else who can pretend to be a leader to run ideas by. That’s, you know, I don’t have to chase somebody else down.

Anne Djerai (43:39.497)
That is a great idea. That’s a great idea. You know, it can be lonely at the top. You run your show too, so you understand that. And I’m going to do that. Yeah. Just why not, right? You’re going to get good advice. That’s cool.

Garrett Oden (43:51.768)
think it’s worth a try. Yeah. At the very, you know, at the very least you’ll get bad advice and you can spot it quickly. So that happens too. That’s, it’s still useful.

Anne Djerai (44:01.469)
Then do you tell it it’s bad advice so that it learns?

Garrett Oden (44:05.41)
Actually, yes, yeah, I’ll tell, hey, that’s wrong. You’ve given me a really poor suggestion and here’s why. And honestly, it helps the conversation. Yeah, so I think it’s good thing to try.

Anne Djerai (44:08.635)
It’s true.

Anne Djerai (44:13.405)
Good? That’s funny, yeah.

Garrett Oden (44:16.876)
Okay, so what’s the story of the Churchill Duck?

Anne Djerai (44:20.585)
I got the Churchill Duck right here. We actually got this at, we went to NAMA Coffee, Tea and Water in New Orleans and they have a big World War II museum. These old figures are controversial in today’s world and I’m a big believer in different time, different space, different thought patterns.

I really like Churchill. I like his writing. He’s a prolific writer. And he was really good at strategizing and convincing people to kind of bend their will because he really believed in democracy and he really believed in kind of his way of life. And yes, people say he’s an imperialist, whatever. At the end of the day, though, he was a fierce protector of democracy. And the way he

dealt with FDR and got America into the war and the way he relationship built. And he did it through words and friendship and humility. And he really loved people. And I have a lot of respect for that. He was somebody that was not of the body in many ways. He drank a lot, ate a lot, but was never intoxicated. He was just so in the moment.

He was a public servant and I really, that resonates with me and in hard times I read, yes, I run a coffee company. I am not a leader of the free world. I am not changing millions of lives, but my little corner of the world is very important to me and important to the people that I care about. So I found that commonality and I just thought this duck is so cute, it’s funny.

And we were about to do our annual meeting. you know, he sat on the table and I, we, we, every year we pick something new. Last year it was basketball. and we, you we make jokes with it. We have cutouts. We talk, you know, we use basketball parables and it’s very cheesy and it’s, it’s supposed to be funny. but in this particular case, it also felt very holistic because we are in war times right now. It is for it for in every scenario I can think of the world is upside down. So.

Garrett Oden (46:32.686)
Hahaha

Anne Djerai (46:44.605)
Churchill, we need a little Churchill. We need a little Churchill duck.

Garrett Oden (46:48.142)
And just for listeners, I’m looking at what is it ceramic? Is it rubber? What’s what is it?

Anne Djerai (46:52.967)
No, it’s a rubber ducky. You put him in your bathtub. Yeah. Yep. Right. Churchill loved a bath. Yeah.

Garrett Oden (46:55.786)
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Take a bath with Churchill. That’s good.

Garrett Oden (47:02.998)
good to know. I was not aware.

Well, and this has been such a fascinating conversation. really, I really appreciate your openness here. Is there anything else, you know, let’s say there’s a young, there’s young and out there and she’s leader of a company and this is, this is her first rodeo and you know, she’s not quite sure what she should be doing or looking forward to or how she should be open to change any advice for that person who’s who feels really in the middle of it right now.

Anne Djerai (47:31.593)
I’ll say what I always say, you you trust your gut. You like whether it’s, you know, my mom always taught me like whether it’s doing the dishes or writing a thesis, you just do the best you can with everything you do. You give 100 percent and some days your 100 percent looks very different. So don’t be too hard on yourself. But trust your gut with things and accept change because.

If you’ve ever been fired from a job, you mourn that day and you’re very upset. Usually it’s like the best thing that ever happened to you because it propels you to where you’re supposed to be. And so for anyone, male, female, whoever, that is in the role of leadership, think that don’t fall into the trap of imposter syndrome thinking that you don’t deserve to be there or that your opinion is less than or walk into a room and think that.

you know, people don’t like you, assume the best. Assume the best for yourself and for others. And I think that usually it works. You know, people first always and yourself first.

Garrett Oden (48:41.902)
That’s great. Thank you for that. Well, I know you’re very present on LinkedIn. Is there anywhere else that people can interact with you?

Anne Djerai (48:50.281)
you know, they can call me. I’m on Instagram. It’s mostly pictures of food, coffee and my 10 year old. So I mean, people can feel free to find me on Instagram, Facebook. That’s totally fine. But yeah, I’ll keep posting on LinkedIn. And I know Tony’s got some really cool stuff for the Metropolis social media page that’s coming up too. So stay tuned for that because it’s some funny. It’s some funny stuff.

Garrett Oden (48:52.814)
You

Garrett Oden (49:16.598)
Awesome. Well, you’re someone to watch and Metropolis is a company to watch. So thanks for being here.

Anne Djerai (49:21.336)
Thanks for having me. This has been great.