# Food Miles and Coffee



## Glenn

There is a focus at the moment on where food comes from, so increasingly our thoughts turn to where our food comes from, and personally we try to avoid buying food that has travelled half-way around the world to reach the supermarket shelves.

However, coffee is not grown in much of Europe, our climate is not right for this plant variety.

We simply don't have the daytime heat, the altitude, the right soil, the cool clean air (you get the message...)

According to coffeeresearch.org the optimum growing conditions are;

For growing Arabica coffee beans, there are two optimal growing climates:

1. The subtropical regions, at high altitudes of 16-24°. Rainy and dry seasons must be well defined, and altitude must be between 1800-3600 feet. These conditions result in one coffee growing season and one maturation season, usually in the coldest part of autumn. Mexico, Jamaica, the S. Paulo and Minas Gerais regions in Brazil, and Zimbabwe are examples of areas with these climate conditions.

2. The equatorial regions at latitudes lower than 10° and altitudes of 3600-6300 feet. Frequent rainfall causes almost continuous flowering, which results in two coffee harvesting seasons. The period of highest rainfall determines the main harvesting period, while the period of least rainfall determines the second harvest season. Because rainfall is too frequent for patio drying to occur, artificial drying with mechanical dryers is performed in this type of coffee growing environment. Examples of countries that have this climate are Kenya, Colombia, and Ethiopia.

Robusta coffee is grown at much lower altitudes (sea level-3000 feet) in an area 10° North and South of the equator. It is much more tolerant to warm conditions than Arabica coffee.

So, how relevant are food miles to coffee?

The product has to be transported and this is usually done in bulk - entire container loads, and due to their weight often sent by sea, thus not regarded as harmful to the environment as air transport (although the debate is inconclusive on this point)

So what do we do?

How can we reduce our carbon footprint?

Can we take steps towards lowering this?

Or do we accept this as a fact of life and not let it bother us?

For perishable food items I use the great food miles tool on OrganicLinker, http://www.organiclinker.com/food-miles.cfm

Is this relevant for coffee? or more relevant to potatos, apples and blueberries than it is to coffee?

Thoughts and debate welcomed.


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## chrisweaver_barista

I'm not entirely sure that it is relative to coffee. Because the coffee we are talking about is such a high quality, speciality produce. With such tight area's where it can be grown. To then chose lower quality to lower food miles would do more damage to the speciality coffee industry than it'd help


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## James Hoffmann

I think it is partially relevant to coffee. It does seem odd to ship beans round the world and then roast them and then send them on another long journey (Illy must supply just about every country on the planet!). I am all for local roasters, makes sense on a number of levels to me.

I think the miles greens travel are pretty much inevitable unless we are going to build lots of Eden centres up at 1400 metres!


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## chrisweaver_barista

of course yeh, I was more talking about the journey they take from farm to end country, was overlooking some of the bigger companies flying them all over!

How was the eden project coffee?


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## Glenn

I'm also a fan of local roasting James although commercially I understand the benefits of mass roasting and distribution.

I had heard about the Eden Project coffee but last heard the greens were being harvested and sent to Fifteen once roasted. Did you manage to get hold of any for tasting?

What was the crop volume and was it sustainable enough to produce a harvest each year?


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## Glenn

Mike pointed out this link today (and has been featured himself (Organiclinker) - well done Mike)


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## Mike

Thanks Glenn, my personal opinion of all the various options is that local is best.

local organic is an ideal, but not always available.

Im not entirely sure how viable local coffee is really, so I guess the next step is fair trade?

how do the fair trade coffees fair? Are they in the market place for their quality or because they are fair trade?


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## Glenn

Many Fair Trade Coffee's make it into the UK for the simple fact that they are Fair Trade.

Fair Trade is not an indicator of the quality, although some people have a perception that because a coffee is Fair Trade it must be good (because they have seen the press about businesses and councils endorsing the Fair Trade Scheme)


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