If you have read some of my background, you probably heard that in 1995-1996, I started what we called then, the Guatemalan Peace Coffee, right after the Guatemalan peace agreements were signed between the leftist rebels and the Guatemalan army. In an interview with MPR I found the following quote “Peace Coffee got its start in 1996 with coffee from Guatemala. It was founded by a native Guatemalan who moved to Minnesota during his country’s civil war. He wanted to provide economic opportunities for some disenfranchised communities during the peace process. So the company was appropriately named Peace Coffee”.
I am the “native Guatemalan”, but the story starts in 1994 when, with support from Mark and Niel Ritchie, and Karen Lehman, I founded the Fair Trade Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), I then went on to be a founding member of the Fair Trade Federation, in discussions with folks at IATP we decided that my strenghts were not really in policy issues, but in business development. I was then given support to establish a for profit subsidiary for IATP as an effective way to increase our ability to engage many of the disenfranchised producers around the world that IATP works with on a regular basis. Though these leaders are experts on issues of trade disparities and the United State’s responsibility through its overwellming influence in promoting such disparities through unfair trade policies, they don’t have a voice in the international arena. It was obvious that we could also do something about this unheard voices through an “alternative” business model.
In 1995 I traveled accross Guatemala visiting coffee plantations and cooperatives with Josh Mailman, a founding member of the Social Ventures Network. The idea of launching a coffee company was born during that trip. Josh Mailman said to me “if you can involve Rigoberta Menchu (1992 Nobel Peace Price winner) in supporting a coffee roasting and distribution compay in the U.S. I will find you money to fund the start-up”.
A few months later we had arranged support from the Rigoberta Menchu Tum Foundation in New York and Rigoberta Menchu herself. By then, we had incorporated Headwaters International which was to be a holding company for the coffee initiative and other business ideas that may come our way. IATP moved to its new offices in south Minneapolis in 1996 and the emerging coffee company was asigned space in the basement as it had a back door exit to the parking lot.
As we launched the Guatemalan Peace Coffee, we started a partnership with the Union de Ejidos de La Selva, in Chiapas Mexico and started selling their coffee on consignment from the basement of IATP’s current offices at 2105 1st. Ave. S. in Minneapolis.
We grew our sales rapidly during 1996 and secured the support for a formal launch of the company during a visit that we planned Rigoberta Menchu. During her visit, we launched the Guatemalan Peace Coffee at the First Lutheran Church in downtown, Minneapolis. Later the same day Senator Paul Wellstone introduced Rigoberta Menchu and Peace Coffee to a full auditorium at The College of St. Catherine in St. Paul.
This memories came to me in a rush a while ago when I was looking at IATP’s website and found a new video just posted about Peace Coffee. The transition from Guatemalan Peace Coffee to just Peace Coffee was started right after we launched the company and saw that there was potential to patner with many more producers from around the world. Right after Chiapas came Nicaragua and we knew it could keep growing better under a generic brand, though we thinkered with launching a different country’s peace coffee every year, the idea did not gain traction.
We then started the process to hire a general manager, on July 11, 1997 Dale Wiehoff then Executive Director of IATP and Headwaters Int’l board member, and myself, interviewed Scott Patterson out of a group of about 5 final applicants for the management position. Scott was the youngest applicant but also the one who seem to have the personality and desire to take ownership of the emerging company, though we went into 1998 before Scott picked up the whole vision and concept, he held the job until the middle of 2006 with flying colors. The rest is history and it is nice to see what all these young people can do when provided with a vision and the infrastructure to promote peace through economic justice, and turn the vision of a Guatemalan immigrant with big ideas, into a real example of social entrepreneurship.
As I engage in new business creation and development with the never ending hope that we can change the world for many people through social entrepreneurship, I invite you to take a look at Peace Coffee’s video below and to make sure that you contribute to our local economy, even though coffee comes from half way accross the world, all of those folks you see in the video live and work right up in the Twin Cities, also I don’t believe there is a single company that can claim yet that they grow their coffee locally in MN, so the choice is yours and it is simple.