Estimated studying time: 7 minutes

Key takeaways

• Staying true to values in specialty espresso is a long-term enterprise technique.
• Paying espresso producers extra builds a provide chain that advantages everybody.
• Committing to espresso high quality strengthens shopper loyalty.
• Investing in producer relationships provides roasters flexibility throughout risky market situations.

Specialty espresso didn’t originate from a conventional marketing strategy. It grew from a want to do issues in a different way – to deal with espresso as a high-quality product with a traceable origin fairly than an inexpensive commodity.

By persistently receiving increased costs for better-quality espresso, producers can enhance their practices and reinvest of their farms – important for the business’s future because it turns into tougher to develop espresso sustainably.

Roasters additionally embrace storytelling of their advertising and marketing, connecting shoppers with the individuals and locations behind the product. Meticulous requirements for roasting and brewing make sure that the standard producers achieved is preserved within the cup.

“It’s troublesome for shoppers to completely grasp simply how a lot work goes into producing the espresso that we love,” says Ian Goodman, the co-owner of Goodman Espresso Roasters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, US. Since 2016, the roaster has been serving to bridge the hole between producers and its area people. 

“Espresso is simply implausible due to the work farmers put into it,” says Ian, who has been working in espresso since 1996, when he opened Chattanooga’s first specialty espresso store. “Serving to individuals perceive the trouble that goes into creating their cup of espresso will increase their appreciation.”

These values of transparency, high quality, equity, and group nonetheless form specialty espresso in the present day. However as roasters face a turbulent market, it turns into much more essential to reaffirm their dedication to those ideas.

You might also like our article on why espresso high quality alone is not a differentiator for roasters.

Why working a roastery is tougher than ever

Ardour continues to drive the specialty espresso market, attracting entrepreneurs prepared to take dangers and push for real innovation.

Nonetheless, during the last two years, working a roastery has grow to be more difficult. Inexperienced espresso costs reached report highs of US$4.41/lb in February 2025, pushed by adversarial climate in key producing nations. 

“The sum of money you spend on inexperienced espresso is exponentially greater than it was two years in the past, however wholesale costs come again slower,” Ian explains. “I’m shopping for fewer enjoyable and thrilling coffees, and focusing extra on coffees to promote as wholesale.”

Smaller espresso roasters discovered themselves notably susceptible to those speedy value swings. The US administration’s determination to roll out widespread tariffs – together with a 50% levy on Brazil, the world’s largest espresso producer – in April 2025 solely exacerbated this vulnerability. Roasters have been pressured to rethink lengthy standing relationships, reformulate blends, and rethink their choices. 

Espresso has since been exempted from tariffs, however the monetary impression nonetheless lingers. The latest battle within the Center East can be elevating freight, insurance coverage, and vitality prices – not directly making espresso dearer.

Many roasters are caught between rising prices and reluctant patrons. The temptation on this surroundings is to chop corners; purchase cheaper beans, cut back storytelling, consider logistics, and deal with sourcing as extra transactional. However that strategy undermines the very basis that specialty espresso was constructed on.

Goodman Espresso Roasters affords an instance of how roasters can maintain agency. From the outset, the enterprise targeted on two issues: its native Chattanooga group and the producers it sources from. Ian explains that bridging the 2 teams has been central to the model’s values.

“Relationships have helped us essentially the most,” he says. “When each events are vested in mutual success, everybody can profit. There’s extra scope to work with a associate once you’re pals.”

Investing in relationships

The monetary constraints are actual in in the present day’s difficult espresso market, as the prices of working a roastery are climbing. Labour, vitality, and logistics prices have all risen, and espresso costs nonetheless stay above a five-year common.

However relationships with producers constructed over years give roasters extra flexibility than a purely transactional sourcing mannequin, demonstrating the long-term advantages of staying true to values, even when it could have been simpler to not within the brief time period.

“For a espresso enterprise to achieve success, it must work with producers to serve higher espresso each time,” says Sofia Cuadros, the co-founder of Unblended Espresso Firm in Colombia, which provides espresso to Goodman Espresso Roasters. “All of this aligns with staying true to your values. If you wish to make an impression, you might want to see producers as allies, like they’re a part of your group.

“Shoppers will begin to recognise producers, and producers will begin reserving coffees for you, fixing costs that work 12 months‑spherical.”

Connecting each ends of the espresso provide chain

One of many core challenges in advertising and marketing specialty espresso is shifting info from the beginning of the availability chain to the top shopper.

Filmmaker Davy Granberry has discovered that movie can shut the hole extra successfully than some other format. “Seeing individuals’s faces attracts you in,” he says. “You possibly can share info, however once you be taught in regards to the individuals behind it and their lives, it turns into extra useful.”

A visit to Colombia to movie a documentary for Goodman Espresso Roasters, displaying the realities of coffee-growing communities on the bottom, made this clear to him. He arrived figuring out little or no about specialty espresso and got here again with extra information than he may articulate. 

“I used to be so excited to inform my household about it,” he says. “I needed to elucidate that espresso is a fruit, the way it’s processed, and what life is definitely like for the individuals rising it.”

Specialty espresso usually pulls individuals in numerous instructions. Some give attention to tools and roasting; others obsess over water chemistry and extraction information. However the reference to producers and the extent of care they apply to rising and processing espresso are issues most shoppers by no means encounter. With out faces and context hooked up to the start of the availability chain, the issue of manufacturing high quality beans stays invisible.

Ian sees this play out in his shopping for selections. “Espresso is a product that adjustments 12 months to 12 months,” he says. “Generally years are off, however you retain working with producers since you perceive that; you’re way more invested within the individuals and the product.”

This 12 months, he pulled again on Brazilian espresso and shifted almost 100 luggage to Nicaragua, a choice he says he may solely justify due to the relationships already in place.

These relationships give each events room to problem-solve. “If each events spend money on the success of the opposite, then everybody can profit,” Ian says. “There’s extra room to work with anyone once you’re a good friend. You possibly can say, ‘Right here’s what I would like, what do you want, how can we make this occur?’”

For roasters, staying true to their values means doubling down on relationships that helped their companies develop. 

When clients are a part of that course of, displaying them the relationships and the selections made on their behalf, roasters give them a cause to care in regards to the product past what’s within the cup.

Loved this? Then learn our article on why increased espresso costs don’t at all times imply increased high quality.

Picture credit: Goodman Espresso Roasters

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