We’re going through a rough year, made tougher by the month it seems.
There’s no way we could possibly cover what's going on in the coffee world in a single post on our social channels, so we thought a write-up like this necessary.
Our coffee supply is being disrupted from two different angles right now. One due to covid logistical challenges, and another from climate change.
Climate Change, Brazillian Coffee Frost.
It’s been all over the news, Brazil has been dealing with a catastrophic level of frost across its entire agricultural sector, at least 40% of coffee trees have been wiped out, and an incalculable amount of suffering has hit their local farming industry. Brazil is the largest coffee exporter in the world, and we use Brazilian beans in all our blends, so this situation is of course, not ideal.
The price of our green coffee has gone up, you've probably noticed our price increases in the cafe as well. We’re absorbing what we can, while still maintaining a level of profit to survive and grow, the fundamental goal stands, good coffee should be affordable to those who appreciate it. That being said, the future is very uncertain, and the situation is constantly changing, we're doing what we can to plan ahead and stay ahead of the changing situation.
Covid Logistical Problems, Shipping Container Shortage.
You’ve probably heard of the current global shipping crisis, with a lack of available shipping containers and a huge backlog of shipments across the board. Every single industry is currently struggling with this, and we’re no different. Our shipments have been delayed by a magnitude of months, with our earliest possible date being mid-November. This puts a ridiculous strain on our available resources and forces us to make some very uncomfortable decisions moving forward. To add to this, the cost of shipping has gone up by a factor of 10, what used to be a $2,000USD shipment is now an incredible $20,000USD fee, hopefully, this is only temporary, and we won't have to make any further adjustments in the future to accommodate for it.
Full Bloom's priority is our cafe, and over the next few weeks we may have to stop distributing our coffee bags to our retailers, Adams, Blooms, Arties, Fresh, Simple Choice, etc., and focus our bag sales within our cafe.
Depending on how things look, we may have to stop the sale of 2lbs bags within our cafe as well and only offer our 12oz pouches on the shelf to preserve what precious coffee we have left. If things get really scary, we have to stop bag sales overall just to keep the bar stocked with coffee for drinks.
We’re sorry for this inconvenience, and working hard to find an alternative solution for this delay, but as of writing this we don’t see too many other options.
Below are some links to learn more about these issues. We encourage any and everyone to take 10 minutes of their time to read them. The world is changing by the day, and there's a lot of work required of us to keep things going. Thank you for taking the time to make it this far.
Many factors contribute to that cup of coffee you enjoy every day, please remember to savour every sip.
Blessings,
Kiel
Coffee Frost
Shipping Crisis