ZACHARY RAY, DESERT SUN COFFEE ROASTERS

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Guest: Zach Ray, CEO of Desert Sun Coffee Roasters
Based: Durango, CO
Online: www.desertsuncoffee.com • @desertsuncoffee

The Coffee People Podcast traveled to Coffeefest Portland in June. For the sixth episode of season 14, we had an impromptu chat with Zach Ray. He's the CEO or "Chief Bean" of Desert Sun Coffee Roasters in Durango, CO. We covered his coffee origin story, the coffee co-op model, and why he believes they can make an impact on climate change. Thanks for watching and drinking good coffee. Don't forget to tip your baristas!

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Desert Sun Coffee is a member-owner of the only roaster owned coffee importing cooperative in North America, called Cooperative Coffees. We are pioneers in the fair-trade coffee movement and leaders in the specialty coffee industry. Awarded the most sustainable coffee available on the market by (one of the world’s largest coffee organizations) the Specialty Coffee Association.

•From DesertSunCoffee.com

Zach’s enthusiasm hit me like a ton of bricks. He believes—and has believed for a long time that coffee is his stick with which to make an impact socially, economically, and environmentally. Desert Sun Coffee Roasters is a member of Cooperative Coffees, a green coffee importing collective. The 23 members have combined their businesses to create a weightier buying power, eliminate a middle vendor in the coffee chain, and develop direct relationships with the coffee farmer.

I was fairly surprised to learn about the collective and Zach’s longevity in the industry. More than that, I was impressed at how positive he was able to be after more than two decades of chipping away at a challenge so big it would overwhelm most of us mortals.

I understand the co-op's perspective that green sourcing can be improved. Like all industries, there are good and bad actors. I believe there are win-win-win* options for roasters, farmers, and green sourcing. Doing it at scale is a much bigger challenge, and I commend Desert Sun for putting its money where its mouth is.

NOTES FROM THE SHOW

The Colorado Trail is awesome. It runs 486 miles from Durango to Denver, Colorado. Most of the trail is at elevations above 10,000 ft. https://coloradotrail.org/
Desert Sun Coffee employs a farm-to-cup model by partnering with 22 other roasters in Cooperative Coffees to increase their ability to purchase green coffee by creating buying power to match a larger business.
They offer 100% organic coffees from small farms with whom they’ve developed years-long relationships. Zach used the term ESH or Extended Sourcing Horizon, which involves committing to a long-term buying relationship so the farmer can depend on the future sales to the co-op.
They offer $0.03/lb of coffee into a co-op fund that is reinvested in environmental projects designed to improve the farming communities they are buying from. There are other businesses, including green coffee sources, that have similar programs. See the list of projects funded here: https://desertsuncoffee.com/blogs/news/impact-committee-year-in-review.
“Cream Scoopers” was a funny new term I learned. Zach used it to refer to green coffee buyers who only take the best micro-lots from a small farm but leave the rest. That makes it difficult for a farm to sell its entire crop. Sounds kinda perverse…
The co-op members collaborate but don’t always agree. They have to work as a team. The passion of the group keeps them moving forward towards shared and individual goals. Zach believes agroforestry can really make an impact on climate change. I wish I was as confident. I think, to move the needle, large corporate coffee farms would need to adopt similar practices. Small farms have shown it can be done, but someone at the top of the big companies needs to see beyond profit spreadsheets if there is going to be hope for large-scale impact.

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The new Peak Reserve line of high-end coffees from Desert Sun is packaged in sharp black and gold gusseted** bags produced by our presenting sponsor, Roastar, Inc. Frankly, the photos don’t really do justice to how much the gold pops when you’re looking at the bag.

Desert Sun Coffee Roasters has developed the Peak Reserve line, a rotating coffee, to be able to focus on extremely high-quality micro or nano lots. There may only be a half-dozen or so bags of each coffee, but in the opinion of Zach and the DSC team, they are the best of the best these small farms have to offer. The current coffee available is a naturally processed Geisha from Finca Maria Bonita in Honduras. It retails for $34.95/10oz.

BUY DSC'S HONDURAS GEISHA PEAK RESERVE

Shout out to Roastar. They enable small coffee businesses like Desert Sun tell a big story. Learn more at https://bit.ly/4gIsHff.

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