Exploring Cost of Production—A Story in Pictures

Junior’s Roasted Coffee hosted an event aimed at explaining why and how coffee prices get determined—now with pictures!

BY MIKE NELSON
SPECIAL TO BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

Images courtesy of Junior’s Roasted Coffee

On November 27, 2018, we at Junior’s Roasted Coffee hosted Ask Me About Cost of Production, an event at the Buckman Coffee Factory that focused on the role that buyers play in the C market and low coffee prices. Invited to the event were retail and wholesale customers as well as members of the coffee community.

In attendance were customers, baristas, roasters, importers, and business owners. The concise two-hour event was intended to bring the consumer side of the supply chain together to learn about the problem through a presentation from Chad Trewick, collectively analyze in group discussion, and collaborate on possible strategies. The event also served as the release date of our comic book, Ask Me About Cost of Production.

Ask Me About Cost of Production is a six-page comic written by us (Mike and Caryn Nelson, co-owners of Junior’s Roasted Coffee and Guilder) and illustrated by Jim Kettner (Kett). We first met Kett at our Princess Bride-themed café, Guilder. Being a big Princess Bride fan, Kett visited the café and asked us if we needed/wanted any Princess Bride illustrations.

Since the start of the Cost of Production Covered Project, we had wanted to share the story and process with the coffee and non-coffee communities in creative ways, and had discussed the possibility of sharing the experience via comic/zine. After seeing Kett’s work, we eagerly proposed the project to him, and he agreed to the project and offered crucial guidance for story layout and structure. With our work cut out for us, we had to write a storyline that somehow balanced educating readers while keeping them engaged.

Written with research article structure (i.e., introduction, background, methods, results/discussion, conclusion), the comic attempts to succinctly explain the project’s motivation, how it was carried out, what was discovered, and what we should take away, in six, multi-paneled pages. The story begins with a recounting of the project’s inception and of how the founding project participants met.

Prefacing the project description is an explanation of the C market, how it concerns the coffee consumer, and a quick look at the implications of low coffee prices for coffee production. Then the comic details the process of the Cost of Production Covered Project with Terra Negra Trade Company, a Guatemalan coffee importer, and Santo Tomás Pachuj, a Guatemalan coffee farm. The comic concludes with recommendations for the reader, and gives a short afterword with acknowledgements. After Kett received the text and story layout, he started illustrating our crude stick figure panels to life.     

Much like the Buckman Coffee Factory event, the comic is intended for all audiences, regardless of whether or not the reader works in, or even drinks, coffee. In an attempt to foster diverse perspectives on a complex sustainability challenge, the Buckman event was open to industry and non-industry professionals. In addition to confronting low trade prices and the volatile nature of the C market, the Cost of Production Covered Project addresses unsustainable consumer/buyer behavior. All attendees of the event, including the hosts, were considered coffee buyers (albeit on various scales), and were encouraged to reflect on “sustainable” consumption.

The comic reads easy, yet communicates complex sustainability challenges quickly. It intends to draw reader attention to the interdependence of the roaster, importer, and farm businesses and the consumer’s interconnectedness with global ecological, economic, and social dimensions.  A greater goal of the project is to get consumers to draw bigger connections to other products they interact with or consume on a regular basis.

The Cost of Production Covered Project uses a multidirectional approach to project promotion and public engagement, and places emphasis on alternative modes of learning. For example, the project is experienced via a coffee label, held and read in a comic book, discussed at a community event that uses collaborative learning techniques, and analyzed via detailed reports online. In an attempt to further engage the consumer, Guilder’s Wi-Fi password was changed to “askmeaboutcostofproduction.”

This strategy addresses the “taken for grantedness” of our consumption in most coffee bar settings, but compels the consumer to, at the very least, repeat “ask me about cost of production,” and at best opens a dialogue around the cost of production. All of the approaches have sought the key to bridging knowledge to action disconnects; each approach seeks a way to put this issue in the consumer’s backyard.

With each new Cost of Production Covered coffee/project comes new strategies. Each participating coffee’s cost of production will indeed serve as the starting point for premium negotiation, but the methods of public engagement will continue to evolve. We aim to have the comic translated to Spanish, and are looking for larger-scale means of distribution.