Podcasts about peace coffee

Lee Wallace knows as much as anybody in town about a great cup of coffee. She joins Jason to talk about the business trends on the world of coffee.

4pm Hour: Jason wants to have a nuanced conversation about trans athletics ahead of a softball tournament that's going to generate a lot of "hot takes". Then he's joined by Lee Wallace from Peace Coffee for DeRusha Eats!

Lee Wallace worked is bringing Peace Coffee, a fair-trade coffee company started in Minneapolis nationwide. We revisit her nearly 4 years after our first visit (Season 1 Episode 97)Stephanie [00:00:13]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the makers of Minnesota podcast. I am your host, Stephanie Hansen, and I'm here today with a guest that I had, boy, probably back in year one of the podcast. I'm here with Lee Wallace. She is the CEO of Peace Coffee. And we talked such a long time ago, lee, it's like it may as well have been a different universe because you were just launching coffee shops at that point. And like any evolving business, your whole model has probably shifted again. So let's just go from pre pandemic. You had some coffee shops you guys were selling in stores and get us caught up on what is happening with Peace Coffee now. And welcome to the program, first of all.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Lee Wallace [00:01:01]:Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. Sure, absolutely. Somebody was asking me a question the other day and I was trying to put things together and I was like, oh, timelines are so weird now, and it's so hard to reconstruct everything, but yeah, in 2019, we had four coffee shops. We had three in downtown Minneapolis and one in the Longfellow neighborhood. And we were working on beginning to think about, okay, we've always been sold all across the country, but really we're beginning to take our first big steps toward what does it look like to begin to scale more nationally and then COVID hit and closed the shops immediately. Well, after we learned that we had to close the shop. March 15 ish yeah, March 15 ish closed the coffee shops. And the good news about being in coffee is it's not like people are going to stop drinking coffee just because of a pandemic. So what happened was really our business shifted quite dramatically. So prior to the pandemic, our number one product was five pound bags of coffee. And those were going to colleges and universities, offices, bulk sets and co ops, bulk sets and specialty grocery. Everything that went away during the pandemic. Right, that's mainly where those five pound bags of coffee are going. And then our second most best seller would be a twelve ounce bag of coffee. Well, all of a sudden, everybody's drinking coffee at home, and so those twelve ounce bags of coffee just started disappearing. And so then we pretty quickly realized, wow, it takes just as much work to bag put £5 of coffee in a bag as it says to put 12oz of coffee in a bag. So we added a second shift. So we were able to bring some of our coffee shop employees back in because we had to add a second shift just to bulk up on the amount of twelve ounce bags we were able to produce. That was a really good sign. The other thing that started really taking off was online. Like everybody else, our peacecoffee.com business just exploded because it's a super safe way to shop. So I think that business grew 300% and we're still continuing to grow that platform. But all of a sudden we have this sizable ecommerce business. So food service went away, but people started getting their coffee in other ways and it was a scramble. But we figured it out and I consider us to be talked to my friends in restaurants during that time. The struggle was real. We needed to I always call it log. Like it feels like log rolling, right? When you're an entrepreneur, you're just trying to stay on the log. Right?Stephanie [00:03:59]:Good analogy.Lee Wallace [00:04:01]:We just had to do some log rolling during that time. But yeah, and then as time went on and our growth continued and we began to get into more national accounts and we began to grow into more of a national business, the decision seemed pretty clear. Like, let's focus on this part of our business. Let's not reopen the coffee shop. So we had shops for about ten years, learned a ton, but we're focusing on our wholesale business now.Stephanie [00:04:35]:So how did you leapfrog from a Minnesota based coffee maker company to national? Was it simply because of the online activation and really being more robust there that people in other markets found you or how did that work? Was it intentional?Lee Wallace [00:04:55]:It was intentional. I bought the business in 2018 from the former owners and part of my desire to do that was to be a little bit more aggressive on the growth front. And I will say it probably all tracks back to Target and we have done a really good job and we've built a really good partnership with them and they've done a really good job. From our first meeting with Target years ago, they were saying, look, walk before you run. And that always has been my growth mentality. So I know it's so easy. We're entrepreneurs and it's so easy to be like, yeah, I want to be in every Target store. Well, some really big businesses have done that and they failed. So with us it's been incrementally growing our store count every year with Target, the coffee buyer there's great and just helping work with him to say, okay, here's some new geographies where we see we've done well in a small grocery store chain or things like that. And if we can prove ourselves in a new geography, then typically in our next review meeting with the coffee buyer, Target, he'll take that information and work to expand our store count. So we have yet to learn what our growth is going to be this year with Target, but we have a pretty solid track record of just going into new geographies. So at this point we're like Michigan down into Denver and then Oklahoma, Texas kind of that's our path with growth with Target. And then we've also had really solid growth in the Natural Channel. That's a great home for us. So we got into all the sprout stores which go from California to Maryland in the past two years. And so then you can use that case study. We're very strategic in terms of demonstrating a good case study and then using that to find other retailers that we want to be in.Stephanie [00:06:53]:So you mentioned earlier, and I've heard stories about people, they get into Target and it's super exciting. And then you realize just because you're in Target doesn't necessarily mean people will buy your product and it's harder to get that pull through. I have a sneaking suspicion that your packaging has a lot to do with people's brand trial of you. And then they like the product and they're like, oh, this is good, I'll buy it again, what do you attribute that first purchase a piece of coffee to when someone's standing in a Target aisle looking at coffee?Lee Wallace [00:07:29]:I think you're right. I think ideally, your packaging is going to work really hard for you. And we've made a very intentional decision with our packaging to a try to put the most important information and make it really easy for people to find the most important information. We have not done that well on previous versions of our package. So I think we've learned over the years and iterated over the years and I think it's important to update your packaging as you learn things. Two, I think the way we position the brand stands out in the coffee category. I think a lot of coffee companies tend to come across as very serious. And what we know about coffee and the consumer research on coffee is coffee is very emotional for people. It's me time, it's their morning ritual. I don't know, I don't need to be really serious during me time. It's okay for someone to say, you be you enjoy yourself, have a good time. We're doing all the hard work for you. And I think we're not saying to folks, drink this cup of coffee and it's going to change your life. We're saying drink this cup of coffee because it does good things for other people. And I think that stands out as well.Stephanie [00:08:52]:And we know, and you were so early adopting in this the brand from the get go. We know that people like to make purchases that help the community, help the environment, give back. And you've made it real easy and it's been a huge platform for you from the get go. And it's almost like it's baked into your company logo, your persona, everything about peace. Coffee feels like that give back movement. So it was very timely and prescient that that was the brand ethos from the get go because you didn't have to work so hard to create that after the fact.Lee Wallace [00:09:36]:I give consumers credit, right. I think they can tell the difference between a brand that was built around the sets of values versus a brand that was reverse engineered to try to appeal to consumers. They're smart. It's been interesting over my career to go from being kind of the outlier to now being mainstream. Right. I've been doing the same thing the whole time, but somehow my sets of issues have become mainstream now, which is great. I love it. Super fun. Yeah. But yeah, I think people can sense that in the brand.Stephanie [00:10:15]:How many people are in the company now?Lee Wallace [00:10:17]:We have about 55 employees.Stephanie [00:10:21]:Yeah, it's not small.Lee Wallace [00:10:24]:Yeah, smaller than when we had all the shops. Right. Then we had like 80 some staff members. So interesting. We're not a small company. We still feel like a small company. I still feel like I run a small company. But then yeah, I also forget that I've been doing this for a while.Stephanie [00:10:45]:So let's talk about the Keurig pods, because you guys have gone into that technology too, and it's so convenient to do a Keurig, and it's such a huge part of wholesale, obviously, with hotels, and it's really handy. But there is a lot of talk about the pods themselves and are they disposable and how do you compost them and how does that work? Tell me about your specific trajectory in that profile.Lee Wallace [00:11:14]:Yeah, obviously pods have been out there for a long time, and obviously we have not participated in that segment of the market for a long time as specialty coffee has become more mainstream, if you will. And as people have said, oh, I'm interested in exploring beyond Starbucks and exploring local brands or exploring smaller brands than Starbucks or more unique brands. We've seen people kind of work their way into the category. And I just began reflecting on is there an opportunity, if we can find the right product, is there an opportunity in the pod space to similarly introduce people to specialty coffee? What consumers tend to do, and you can see this with Starbucks, right? So as people start to explore coffee, and a lot of times now it's happening when people are teens, right? But they start with sweet and creamy and then they kind of ladder up into a different experience. And I began thinking, there got to be pod people out there who love a K Cup but want a different set of things alongside that. Maybe it's a higher quality coffee bean, maybe it's a more eco friendly way of getting that kind of coffee. And so it just seems like the right time to explore. Is there a consumer in that space whose needs aren't really getting met in terms of both quality and the sustainability of the solution that we're offering? So we began searching for solutions to reach that consumer. And one of the really interesting things about coffee is that one of the biggest sources of waste associated with coffee is actually the coffee that gets poured out of the pot at the end of the day. And so when I really began reflecting on that and specialty coffee sort of traditional belief that the pod person doesn't want a really premium coffee experience. And again, thinking, I think we're missing part of the equation here, because I know I don't brew a pot of coffee anymore, but when I did have a pot of coffee, I would pour a lot of coffee away. And there is space for that single cup experience, and there's space for people who are really busy and have a bunch of kids and just need to make their darn cup of coffee, right? And then it's like, okay, well, if we're going into that space, we've got to do it the piece way, which is to do it in a sustainable way. So we found a solution. There's no plastic cup. The bottom is just mesh, so it can be composted the same way your coffee filter can be composted. And then the ring that supports it is made out of a combination of mainly wood and corn, which is fully compostable in commercial composting settings. So not in your backyard, but if you either drop your compost off or get it picked up curbside, you can put it in there. And so that to us, felt like this is an expression of who we are and we can launch this product.Stephanie [00:14:33]:I love that you talked about the last bit of the pot getting thrown away because I think about that because my husband and I are just two people and we're big coffee drinkers. And there is it seems like either we drink the whole pot and then we make another half and there's that last bit. I have ice cube trays and we make ice cubes and we try to repurpose and reuse. But no matter how you do it, sometimes you just end up pouring out some coffee. So it's interesting, we've talked about a single cup mostly, I think, for the afternoon and the evening coffee drinking too, where you're going to have a decaf maybe, or you're going to have something that feels like a little elevated experience that you're just going to have the one I don't know. It does feel very different than your morning pot to me.Lee Wallace [00:15:20]:And it's interesting how many people own both. So I got Reese Consumer Research that said a lot of people own both a single cup brewer and a larger brewer. Whether they're holding the larger cup brewer for when they have company over or they use the single cup during the week and they use the larger cup on the weekends. So yeah, a multi cup on the weekends. So yeah, people own both, which was totally new to me.Stephanie [00:15:45]:Okay, so Peace Coffee has a huge reputation as being a great local Minnesota company. Now you're in I'm just going to throw a market out there, let's just say Maryland, where you don't have this huge Minnesota following. You don't have that touchstone. When you are introduced to a market like a Maryland, how do you do the marketing and what do you do different? Because it has to be a completely different approach for getting pairs of eyes on your coffee inside the store.Lee Wallace [00:16:20]:I think the key is really to understand the retailer that you're in and then the way that they run promotions. Your biggest tool as a growing brand, because I can't market to the entire state of Maryland in a Florida, right, of course, right. What we find is, okay, we're getting to Sprout stores out of the population of Maryland. How many of them reasonably go to Sprouts? I mean, we can do good business in Sprout stores, but you can't use the shotgun and say right. So I think your number one tool is really get those sale tags up. Right. I mean, first make sure you get on shelf, properly support the product, make sure the execution is right. Then it's really have the correct promotional strategy to really drive trial. So people say, oh, this is new. Oh look, that packaging is cute. Oh, it's fair trade and organic. Obviously you've got a really good product in the bag that I would say put out because if people buy it once they don't like it, you're done to the beginning. But then I would say, yeah, number two is making sure you have the right promotions. And then we have expanded our investment in digital marketing quite a bit. So finding our consumers, whether that's finding our consumers and running promotions specifically targets to them. So people who like Fair Trade organic coffee, then I would say also we're investing in the retail platforms themselves. So different platforms, consumer. Yeah, and then the last piece would be just supporting with digital marketing as it makes sense. But I think the best lever that brands have really is promotions.Stephanie [00:18:10]:And I think sometimes people are afraid of those because they're pretty expensive in a store. And I guess it makes so much sense. Like here is this brand that has welcomed you into their store and they are giving you all these mechanisms with which to reach their customers, but they all cost money. I mean, that's kind of the hidden part of it that maybe consumers don't know. But why wouldn't you be totally investing in those platforms? Is it just because they're too expensive or people? I can't imagine why you would think that. You don't need to do that.Lee Wallace [00:18:46]:I mean, the reality is that it's the best way to get people to try your product for the first time. And if you can't grow the number of people who are repeat purchasers of your product, then it makes it really hard to stay on shelf. And that also is very expensive. It's very expensive to fall off a grocer shelf in terms of a it sets you back, you're not bringing that revenue anymore. B, there's going to be a bunch of products that has to be discontinued, things like that. So I get it. And we look very carefully at retailers before we go into them. It's not like we're sitting here and people are coming to us. I don't want to give anybody the impression that we're just sitting here and people are coming so we're saying, no, we don't want to be on your shelves.Stephanie [00:19:33]:But you're more mature.Lee Wallace [00:19:35]:Yeah. We're thoughtful about who we're trying to partner with. And one aspect of things that we analyze is how expensive is it to do business with this retailer? Do they require a ton of free product? Do they require slotting fees? Are they going to have minimum or maximum expectations for promotions? How does that fit within? We have a certain percentage of sales that we want a certain percent of our revenue. I mean that we say, okay, we're going to budget x percent of revenue for trade support. And so we really need to understand what retailers expectations are.Stephanie [00:20:12]:I see. So being really thoughtful and maybe not moving too quickly into a retailer even though it looks like it'd be a great opportunity because if you can't afford to market properly while you're there and then you get yanked again, I've never thought about that. And that's a really good thing for emerging brands to think about. Even though you get invited to a retailer, make sure that you are prepared both emotionally, psychologically with your team, but also financially to be able to support the launch in that retailer.Lee Wallace [00:20:47]:Yeah. Look. Peace coffee. I have a friend who always jokes that Peace Coffee is the 25 year old overnight success. Right. There are some companies that are designed to be rocket ships and good for them. And sometimes you just have to recognize that it's a slog and incremental growth. Steady incremental growth is a way to do it. And it's been our approach. And I think we're finally to the point where we can say we have a banner in every part of the country that you could go in and find Peace Coffee. And then you get to that point. Then it makes it that much easier with, oh, you can find us here or you can find us here.Stephanie [00:21:30]:Yeah, I have a van and I travel around the country in my van for fun and I have seen your coffee in way more states all of a sudden and I'm like, oh look, they're carrying Peace Coffee. I was in Palm Springs the other day and a local salsa was on the shelf. I was like, oh look. It's fun to see other Minnesota brands making it out in the big bad world, as it were.Lee Wallace [00:21:51]:It is so funny. I was just in Fort Lauderdale visiting family and my sister in law said to me, where can I get Peace Coffee? And I said, actually, you can get peace coffee at Sprouts. And it was fun to be like at this point where I'm like, oh yeah, I can help most people find our coffee at this point in time.Stephanie [00:22:08]:I can refer you. Okay, totally. Random question. If you were going to launch a product today and it's brand new, is there, like, a product that you're like, oh, I wish that that would be a fun product to work on, or something that just you think, oh, that would be really fun.Lee Wallace [00:22:29]:I am such a food person at this point in my life. It would have to be food, because that's really what I know. And Stephanie, I have these thoughts all the time, but then they just, like, tumbleweed.Stephanie [00:22:49]:And I knew it would be, like, a weird, oddball question, but sometimes people are like, oh, I wish I could work on that.Lee Wallace [00:22:57]:Yeah, well, if I wasn't, I mean, I'm also a beverage person, so I would say probably it'd be totally different. But I would love to work on a high end craft spirit kind of launch. I think that would be super fun. And working on growing something in that segment would be a ton of fun just because it's sort of the counterpart to coffee, right? Yeah.Stephanie [00:23:24]:Maybe you and my friend Heather Manley at Crooked Water Spirits need to do a coffee collaboration because yeah, very delicious.Lee Wallace [00:23:32]:Yeah, it could be very delicious.Stephanie [00:23:35]:All right, well, it's great to catch up with you, Lee. Thanks for getting us caught up on where you're at. And good luck as you continue to have your United States domination of peace coffee. It's been super fun. We'll talk soon.Lee Wallace [00:23:49]:All right. Thanks, Stephanie.Stephanie [00:23:50]:Thank you. Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Lee Wallace worked is bringing Peace Coffee, a fair-trade coffee company started in Minneapolis nationwide. We revisit her nearly 4 years after our first visit (Season 1 Episode 97)Stephanie [00:00:13]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the makers of Minnesota podcast. I am your host, Stephanie Hansen, and I'm here today with a guest that I had, boy, probably back in year one of the podcast. I'm here with Lee Wallace. She is the CEO of Peace Coffee. And we talked such a long time ago, lee, it's like it may as well have been a different universe because you were just launching coffee shops at that point. And like any evolving business, your whole model has probably shifted again. So let's just go from pre pandemic. You had some coffee shops you guys were selling in stores and get us caught up on what is happening with Peace Coffee now. And welcome to the program, first of all.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Lee Wallace [00:01:01]:Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. Sure, absolutely. Somebody was asking me a question the other day and I was trying to put things together and I was like, oh, timelines are so weird now, and it's so hard to reconstruct everything, but yeah, in 2019, we had four coffee shops. We had three in downtown Minneapolis and one in the Longfellow neighborhood. And we were working on beginning to think about, okay, we've always been sold all across the country, but really we're beginning to take our first big steps toward what does it look like to begin to scale more nationally and then COVID hit and closed the shops immediately. Well, after we learned that we had to close the shop. March 15 ish yeah, March 15 ish closed the coffee shops. And the good news about being in coffee is it's not like people are going to stop drinking coffee just because of a pandemic. So what happened was really our business shifted quite dramatically. So prior to the pandemic, our number one product was five pound bags of coffee. And those were going to colleges and universities, offices, bulk sets and co ops, bulk sets and specialty grocery. Everything that went away during the pandemic. Right, that's mainly where those five pound bags of coffee are going. And then our second most best seller would be a twelve ounce bag of coffee. Well, all of a sudden, everybody's drinking coffee at home, and so those twelve ounce bags of coffee just started disappearing. And so then we pretty quickly realized, wow, it takes just as much work to bag put £5 of coffee in a bag as it says to put 12oz of coffee in a bag. So we added a second shift. So we were able to bring some of our coffee shop employees back in because we had to add a second shift just to bulk up on the amount of twelve ounce bags we were able to produce. That was a really good sign. The other thing that started really taking off was online. Like everybody else, our peacecoffee.com business just exploded because it's a super safe way to shop. So I think that business grew 300% and we're still continuing to grow that platform. But all of a sudden we have this sizable ecommerce business. So food service went away, but people started getting their coffee in other ways and it was a scramble. But we figured it out and I consider us to be talked to my friends in restaurants during that time. The struggle was real. We needed to I always call it log. Like it feels like log rolling, right? When you're an entrepreneur, you're just trying to stay on the log. Right?Stephanie [00:03:59]:Good analogy.Lee Wallace [00:04:01]:We just had to do some log rolling during that time. But yeah, and then as time went on and our growth continued and we began to get into more national accounts and we began to grow into more of a national business, the decision seemed pretty clear. Like, let's focus on this part of our business. Let's not reopen the coffee shop. So we had shops for about ten years, learned a ton, but we're focusing on our wholesale business now.Stephanie [00:04:35]:So how did you leapfrog from a Minnesota based coffee maker company to national? Was it simply because of the online activation and really being more robust there that people in other markets found you or how did that work? Was it intentional?Lee Wallace [00:04:55]:It was intentional. I bought the business in 2018 from the former owners and part of my desire to do that was to be a little bit more aggressive on the growth front. And I will say it probably all tracks back to Target and we have done a really good job and we've built a really good partnership with them and they've done a really good job. From our first meeting with Target years ago, they were saying, look, walk before you run. And that always has been my growth mentality. So I know it's so easy. We're entrepreneurs and it's so easy to be like, yeah, I want to be in every Target store. Well, some really big businesses have done that and they failed. So with us it's been incrementally growing our store count every year with Target, the coffee buyer there's great and just helping work with him to say, okay, here's some new geographies where we see we've done well in a small grocery store chain or things like that. And if we can prove ourselves in a new geography, then typically in our next review meeting with the coffee buyer, Target, he'll take that information and work to expand our store count. So we have yet to learn what our growth is going to be this year with Target, but we have a pretty solid track record of just going into new geographies. So at this point we're like Michigan down into Denver and then Oklahoma, Texas kind of that's our path with growth with Target. And then we've also had really solid growth in the Natural Channel. That's a great home for us. So we got into all the sprout stores which go from California to Maryland in the past two years. And so then you can use that case study. We're very strategic in terms of demonstrating a good case study and then using that to find other retailers that we want to be in.Stephanie [00:06:53]:So you mentioned earlier, and I've heard stories about people, they get into Target and it's super exciting. And then you realize just because you're in Target doesn't necessarily mean people will buy your product and it's harder to get that pull through. I have a sneaking suspicion that your packaging has a lot to do with people's brand trial of you. And then they like the product and they're like, oh, this is good, I'll buy it again, what do you attribute that first purchase a piece of coffee to when someone's standing in a Target aisle looking at coffee?Lee Wallace [00:07:29]:I think you're right. I think ideally, your packaging is going to work really hard for you. And we've made a very intentional decision with our packaging to a try to put the most important information and make it really easy for people to find the most important information. We have not done that well on previous versions of our package. So I think we've learned over the years and iterated over the years and I think it's important to update your packaging as you learn things. Two, I think the way we position the brand stands out in the coffee category. I think a lot of coffee companies tend to come across as very serious. And what we know about coffee and the consumer research on coffee is coffee is very emotional for people. It's me time, it's their morning ritual. I don't know, I don't need to be really serious during me time. It's okay for someone to say, you be you enjoy yourself, have a good time. We're doing all the hard work for you. And I think we're not saying to folks, drink this cup of coffee and it's going to change your life. We're saying drink this cup of coffee because it does good things for other people. And I think that stands out as well.Stephanie [00:08:52]:And we know, and you were so early adopting in this the brand from the get go. We know that people like to make purchases that help the community, help the environment, give back. And you've made it real easy and it's been a huge platform for you from the get go. And it's almost like it's baked into your company logo, your persona, everything about peace. Coffee feels like that give back movement. So it was very timely and prescient that that was the brand ethos from the get go because you didn't have to work so hard to create that after the fact.Lee Wallace [00:09:36]:I give consumers credit, right. I think they can tell the difference between a brand that was built around the sets of values versus a brand that was reverse engineered to try to appeal to consumers. They're smart. It's been interesting over my career to go from being kind of the outlier to now being mainstream. Right. I've been doing the same thing the whole time, but somehow my sets of issues have become mainstream now, which is great. I love it. Super fun. Yeah. But yeah, I think people can sense that in the brand.Stephanie [00:10:15]:How many people are in the company now?Lee Wallace [00:10:17]:We have about 55 employees.Stephanie [00:10:21]:Yeah, it's not small.Lee Wallace [00:10:24]:Yeah, smaller than when we had all the shops. Right. Then we had like 80 some staff members. So interesting. We're not a small company. We still feel like a small company. I still feel like I run a small company. But then yeah, I also forget that I've been doing this for a while.Stephanie [00:10:45]:So let's talk about the Keurig pods, because you guys have gone into that technology too, and it's so convenient to do a Keurig, and it's such a huge part of wholesale, obviously, with hotels, and it's really handy. But there is a lot of talk about the pods themselves and are they disposable and how do you compost them and how does that work? Tell me about your specific trajectory in that profile.Lee Wallace [00:11:14]:Yeah, obviously pods have been out there for a long time, and obviously we have not participated in that segment of the market for a long time as specialty coffee has become more mainstream, if you will. And as people have said, oh, I'm interested in exploring beyond Starbucks and exploring local brands or exploring smaller brands than Starbucks or more unique brands. We've seen people kind of work their way into the category. And I just began reflecting on is there an opportunity, if we can find the right product, is there an opportunity in the pod space to similarly introduce people to specialty coffee? What consumers tend to do, and you can see this with Starbucks, right? So as people start to explore coffee, and a lot of times now it's happening when people are teens, right? But they start with sweet and creamy and then they kind of ladder up into a different experience. And I began thinking, there got to be pod people out there who love a K Cup but want a different set of things alongside that. Maybe it's a higher quality coffee bean, maybe it's a more eco friendly way of getting that kind of coffee. And so it just seems like the right time to explore. Is there a consumer in that space whose needs aren't really getting met in terms of both quality and the sustainability of the solution that we're offering? So we began searching for solutions to reach that consumer. And one of the really interesting things about coffee is that one of the biggest sources of waste associated with coffee is actually the coffee that gets poured out of the pot at the end of the day. And so when I really began reflecting on that and specialty coffee sort of traditional belief that the pod person doesn't want a really premium coffee experience. And again, thinking, I think we're missing part of the equation here, because I know I don't brew a pot of coffee anymore, but when I did have a pot of coffee, I would pour a lot of coffee away. And there is space for that single cup experience, and there's space for people who are really busy and have a bunch of kids and just need to make their darn cup of coffee, right? And then it's like, okay, well, if we're going into that space, we've got to do it the piece way, which is to do it in a sustainable way. So we found a solution. There's no plastic cup. The bottom is just mesh, so it can be composted the same way your coffee filter can be composted. And then the ring that supports it is made out of a combination of mainly wood and corn, which is fully compostable in commercial composting settings. So not in your backyard, but if you either drop your compost off or get it picked up curbside, you can put it in there. And so that to us, felt like this is an expression of who we are and we can launch this product.Stephanie [00:14:33]:I love that you talked about the last bit of the pot getting thrown away because I think about that because my husband and I are just two people and we're big coffee drinkers. And there is it seems like either we drink the whole pot and then we make another half and there's that last bit. I have ice cube trays and we make ice cubes and we try to repurpose and reuse. But no matter how you do it, sometimes you just end up pouring out some coffee. So it's interesting, we've talked about a single cup mostly, I think, for the afternoon and the evening coffee drinking too, where you're going to have a decaf maybe, or you're going to have something that feels like a little elevated experience that you're just going to have the one I don't know. It does feel very different than your morning pot to me.Lee Wallace [00:15:20]:And it's interesting how many people own both. So I got Reese Consumer Research that said a lot of people own both a single cup brewer and a larger brewer. Whether they're holding the larger cup brewer for when they have company over or they use the single cup during the week and they use the larger cup on the weekends. So yeah, a multi cup on the weekends. So yeah, people own both, which was totally new to me.Stephanie [00:15:45]:Okay, so Peace Coffee has a huge reputation as being a great local Minnesota company. Now you're in I'm just going to throw a market out there, let's just say Maryland, where you don't have this huge Minnesota following. You don't have that touchstone. When you are introduced to a market like a Maryland, how do you do the marketing and what do you do different? Because it has to be a completely different approach for getting pairs of eyes on your coffee inside the store.Lee Wallace [00:16:20]:I think the key is really to understand the retailer that you're in and then the way that they run promotions. Your biggest tool as a growing brand, because I can't market to the entire state of Maryland in a Florida, right, of course, right. What we find is, okay, we're getting to Sprout stores out of the population of Maryland. How many of them reasonably go to Sprouts? I mean, we can do good business in Sprout stores, but you can't use the shotgun and say right. So I think your number one tool is really get those sale tags up. Right. I mean, first make sure you get on shelf, properly support the product, make sure the execution is right. Then it's really have the correct promotional strategy to really drive trial. So people say, oh, this is new. Oh look, that packaging is cute. Oh, it's fair trade and organic. Obviously you've got a really good product in the bag that I would say put out because if people buy it once they don't like it, you're done to the beginning. But then I would say, yeah, number two is making sure you have the right promotions. And then we have expanded our investment in digital marketing quite a bit. So finding our consumers, whether that's finding our consumers and running promotions specifically targets to them. So people who like Fair Trade organic coffee, then I would say also we're investing in the retail platforms themselves. So different platforms, consumer. Yeah, and then the last piece would be just supporting with digital marketing as it makes sense. But I think the best lever that brands have really is promotions.Stephanie [00:18:10]:And I think sometimes people are afraid of those because they're pretty expensive in a store. And I guess it makes so much sense. Like here is this brand that has welcomed you into their store and they are giving you all these mechanisms with which to reach their customers, but they all cost money. I mean, that's kind of the hidden part of it that maybe consumers don't know. But why wouldn't you be totally investing in those platforms? Is it just because they're too expensive or people? I can't imagine why you would think that. You don't need to do that.Lee Wallace [00:18:46]:I mean, the reality is that it's the best way to get people to try your product for the first time. And if you can't grow the number of people who are repeat purchasers of your product, then it makes it really hard to stay on shelf. And that also is very expensive. It's very expensive to fall off a grocer shelf in terms of a it sets you back, you're not bringing that revenue anymore. B, there's going to be a bunch of products that has to be discontinued, things like that. So I get it. And we look very carefully at retailers before we go into them. It's not like we're sitting here and people are coming to us. I don't want to give anybody the impression that we're just sitting here and people are coming so we're saying, no, we don't want to be on your shelves.Stephanie [00:19:33]:But you're more mature.Lee Wallace [00:19:35]:Yeah. We're thoughtful about who we're trying to partner with. And one aspect of things that we analyze is how expensive is it to do business with this retailer? Do they require a ton of free product? Do they require slotting fees? Are they going to have minimum or maximum expectations for promotions? How does that fit within? We have a certain percentage of sales that we want a certain percent of our revenue. I mean that we say, okay, we're going to budget x percent of revenue for trade support. And so we really need to understand what retailers expectations are.Stephanie [00:20:12]:I see. So being really thoughtful and maybe not moving too quickly into a retailer even though it looks like it'd be a great opportunity because if you can't afford to market properly while you're there and then you get yanked again, I've never thought about that. And that's a really good thing for emerging brands to think about. Even though you get invited to a retailer, make sure that you are prepared both emotionally, psychologically with your team, but also financially to be able to support the launch in that retailer.Lee Wallace [00:20:47]:Yeah. Look. Peace coffee. I have a friend who always jokes that Peace Coffee is the 25 year old overnight success. Right. There are some companies that are designed to be rocket ships and good for them. And sometimes you just have to recognize that it's a slog and incremental growth. Steady incremental growth is a way to do it. And it's been our approach. And I think we're finally to the point where we can say we have a banner in every part of the country that you could go in and find Peace Coffee. And then you get to that point. Then it makes it that much easier with, oh, you can find us here or you can find us here.Stephanie [00:21:30]:Yeah, I have a van and I travel around the country in my van for fun and I have seen your coffee in way more states all of a sudden and I'm like, oh look, they're carrying Peace Coffee. I was in Palm Springs the other day and a local salsa was on the shelf. I was like, oh look. It's fun to see other Minnesota brands making it out in the big bad world, as it were.Lee Wallace [00:21:51]:It is so funny. I was just in Fort Lauderdale visiting family and my sister in law said to me, where can I get Peace Coffee? And I said, actually, you can get peace coffee at Sprouts. And it was fun to be like at this point where I'm like, oh yeah, I can help most people find our coffee at this point in time.Stephanie [00:22:08]:I can refer you. Okay, totally. Random question. If you were going to launch a product today and it's brand new, is there, like, a product that you're like, oh, I wish that that would be a fun product to work on, or something that just you think, oh, that would be really fun.Lee Wallace [00:22:29]:I am such a food person at this point in my life. It would have to be food, because that's really what I know. And Stephanie, I have these thoughts all the time, but then they just, like, tumbleweed.Stephanie [00:22:49]:And I knew it would be, like, a weird, oddball question, but sometimes people are like, oh, I wish I could work on that.Lee Wallace [00:22:57]:Yeah, well, if I wasn't, I mean, I'm also a beverage person, so I would say probably it'd be totally different. But I would love to work on a high end craft spirit kind of launch. I think that would be super fun. And working on growing something in that segment would be a ton of fun just because it's sort of the counterpart to coffee, right? Yeah.Stephanie [00:23:24]:Maybe you and my friend Heather Manley at Crooked Water Spirits need to do a coffee collaboration because yeah, very delicious.Lee Wallace [00:23:32]:Yeah, it could be very delicious.Stephanie [00:23:35]:All right, well, it's great to catch up with you, Lee. Thanks for getting us caught up on where you're at. And good luck as you continue to have your United States domination of peace coffee. It's been super fun. We'll talk soon.Lee Wallace [00:23:49]:All right. Thanks, Stephanie.Stephanie [00:23:50]:Thank you. Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Cosecha Traders on Instagram   Join us for a deep discussion exploring Luis and Jim's origin stories in peace building and diplomacy, and from back stories to coffee through sharing a macro view of the recent decades at origin. Jim and Luis share about the recent decades, setting the context, the reality today for farmers in their countries. We reach a peak in the conversation on what transparency means, Sustainability, and conflict. These are not just words. Peace is possible through solidarity and transparency. And regenerative organic practices and above fair trade prices help today.

10/31/21- Jazmine & Jeremy reminisce on Halloweens past - from our costume history, to dressing up at work, to the benefits of Trick or Treating in a small town vs a city, The Jeremy Mills Podcast Episode #316 / Coffee Date #30 Everything You Need: linktr.ee/jeremyjoemills Website: www.jeremymillspodcast.com; Twitter & Instagram @jeremyjoemills; Email: jeremymillspodcast@gmail.com. Theme Song: Coffee Date - M3_Beats

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has always been intriguing to me. It is one of those places that still seem mysterious and unexplored. The congo is a large country with ample amounts of resources. In this episode, Jim dives into the issues facing the congo and what Might Peace Coffee is doing by importing coffee to help the country grow and develop.  Jim's love for his home country shines through and I can't wait to see what they accomplish in the future. If you would like to buy some of their coffee the link is below. Might Peace Coffee: https://mightypeacecoffee.comIG: https://www.instagram.com/mightypeacegram/Jim Ngokwey IG: https://www.instagram.com/jim.ngokwey/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/robpirie?fan_landing=true)

Peace Coffee makes sustainably grown, freshly roasted coffee beans where their values are at the core of their business. Listen in to see how such a strong mission has helped grow their business– tackling not only a consumer problem but a societal problem at large.

I finally get around to my review of the Disney Frozen movies. After seeing it about 100 times I finally get it and today I reveal the life lessons I've learned from Elsa, Olaf and the gang. I also discuss my latest meditation method. I start off with Wim Hof power breathing exercise and then go into my meditation. I like to do this before I drink coffee to keep myself in the theta brain state. The last time I did this I had a strange visual experience with a waterslide and somehow it led me to the power of letting my inner being take over for a while.  Coffee of the day is Peace Coffee: https://www.peacecoffee.com Water has memory! https://www.resonancescience.org/blog/Scientists-Show-That%20Water-Has-Memory If you would like to help The Coffee Buzz please tell a friend about us and as always thank you for listening! The Coffee Buzz https://www.thecoffeebuzzpodcast.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thecoffeebuzzpc/ Twitter https://twitter.com/thecoffeebuzzpc TicTok https://www.tiktok.com/@thecoffeebuzzpodcast?lang=en Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thecoffeebuzzpodcast thecoffeebuzzpodcast@gmail.com The Coffee Buzz Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1nyJZinuwq4cj8ECflkvH1 Listen to all my pod pals! The Angry Dad Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/angry-dad-podcast/id1291735328 The Untrained Eye https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-untrained-eye/id1399791387 Divine Evolution https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/divine-evolution-life-support-for-the-soul/id1542428855 Hermit Radio https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hermit-radio/id1472113771 Glen Thinks Stuff https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/glen-thinks-stuff-podcast/id1375725737 The Daily Stoic https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-stoic/id1430315931 #thecoffeebuzzpodcast #veganpodcast #subconsciousmind #fitness #personaldevelopment #plantbaseddiet #simulationtheory #lawofvibration #running #trialrunning #lawofone #ramaterial #neuroscience #meditation #wimhofmethod #frozen #letitgo  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thecoffeebuzz/message

Today, Colby talks about finding your inner peace. Inner peace is the space where you feel balanced, fulfilled and joyful. It's a state where you are accepting of who you are, fully and completely. Listen to see how you can attain inner peace! Subscribe to never miss an episode!

Having grown up in extreme poverty in the Northern rainforest of Guatemala, Regi has committed his life to do whatever he can to ensure that he contributes to alleviating the conditions that create the same suffering for others, no matter where in the world they may be. To this lifelong and global task, he brings a boundless passion and a long history of entrepreneurship. Back in Guatemala before migrating to the US in 1992, he managed the marketing department for an organization that sold crafts from over 3,500 indigenous people from 42 communities. Once he arrived in the US, he started a few similar businesses and in 1995 started the process of founding, organizing, conceptualizing, and later launching and managing the start-up phase of Peace Coffee, one of Minnesota's premier fair-trade coffee companies. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Having grown up in extreme poverty in the Northern rainforest of Guatemala, Regi has committed his life to do whatever he can to ensure that he contributes to alleviating the conditions that create the same suffering for others, no matter where in the world they may be. To this lifelong and global task, he brings a boundless passion and a long history of entrepreneurship. Back in Guatemala before migrating to the US in 1992, he managed the marketing department for an organization that sold crafts from over 3,500 indigenous people from 42 communities. Once he arrived in the US, he started a few similar businesses and in 1995 started the process of founding, organizing, conceptualizing, and later launching and managing the start-up phase of Peace Coffee, one of Minnesota's premier fair-trade coffee companies. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

About Cheyenne:  Baked, Brewed, Beautiful is a coffee and food blog written by Cheyenne Lentz (Elwell). Cheyenne is the author of The Coffee Journal, a daily coffee brewing log. She is a contributing lifestyle writer for Business Insider, MSN, Yahoo!, and The Spruce in which she regularly writes about coffee and reviews coffee products. She also loves to develop her own personal coffee & coffee pairing recipes at home as a way to relax from a hard day's work.Fire Dept. Coffee - https://www.firedeptcoffee.com/Peace Coffee - https://www.peacecoffee.com/Other Links of Note:Flash Chilled Coffee RecipeToddy Coffee Maker - the classic!  PERFECT Cold Brew RecipeThrive Farmers & Chick-fil-ATodd Carmichael, Founder of La ColombeOther roasters to check out:  Ciel Coffee, Intelligentsia, Go Get 'em Tiger, Blue Bottle, Dean's BeansCheyenne has a very lyrical voice... listen to her sing Satisfied in You, based on Psalm 42.  She is a very talented musician.  Besides writing about coffee, you can find her playing and teaching the violin in her home music studio. Her husband is also a musician (piano, guitar, drums), and they often play communion songs at their church. 

In the 1990s, when Lee Wallace told business schools she was interested in studying the intersection of mission and money, they steered her into public policy. It was a time before B-corps and one-for-one brands. “Purpose” wasn’t the business buzzword it is today. But even armed with that master’s degree in public policy, Wallace continued to believe in the power of doing good while doing well. Eventually she found her way to a for-profit company founded on a mission to help farmers. That was Peace Coffee, an early champion of the fair trade model to create a transparent and sustainable system that directly benefits farmers and their communities. “The thing that’s so amazing about being presented with the opportunity to run a business founded to do the right thing is authenticity,” says Wallace, who came on as CEO in 2002 and bought the business in 2018 from its founding nonprofit, the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy. Today, Wallace is a recognized leader in social enterprise business, as well as fair trade enterprises and specialty coffee importers. She holds leadership roles in the Climate Collaborative and the B corps movement. And she doesn’t apologize for Peace Coffee’s success, because selling more coffee means purchasing more coffee beans at fair prices from farming cooperatives around the world. With a new eco-friendly Minneapolis manufacturing facility, Peace was well positioned at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis to respond to the sudden spike in coffee bean sales for home brewing. In 2020, Peace Coffee doubled its store accounts with Target and added 70 more Whole Foods stores. Despite losing the 15 percent of sales that came from restaurants, theaters, and offices, Wallace says she expects to end the year up 17 percent. But the challenges persist. The Peace Coffee headquarters is just off East Lake Street, near the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct that was burned down in protests following George Floyd’s killing. She talks about what it will take to restore the multicultural neighborhood’s vibrancy. And although it had not yet been announced publicly at the time of this conversation, Wallace shared that Peace Coffee is getting out of the coffee shop business to focus on growing wholesale. But even in that, she found a way to make it count, by partnering with nonprofit Wildflyer Coffee, which provides jobs to homeless youth. After our conversation with Wallace, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Case Frid is an assistant professor in the department of entrepreneurship whose work focuses on how business relates to community. “A corporate purpose is about your core reason for being and the impact your organization wants to have on the world,” Frid says. “It’s got to be relational, not transactional.”

Lee Wallace is the owner and Queen Bean of Peace Coffee, a company on a mission to craft a delicious coffee experience with communities around the globe. A rare CEO whose area of expertise resides in, in her words, that intersection between mission and money, she is a sought-after writer and speaker as well as a recognized leader and expert in multiple fields: social enterprise businesses, fair trade enterprises, and specialty coffee importers. Lee sits on the Research Advisory Council for the Specialty Coffee Association, and holds active leadership roles in the Climate Collaborative, and the B Corps movement. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling to new places, puttering around in her garden, and hanging out with her dogs Ruby and Felix. Based in the heart of Minneapolis, Peace Coffee has been proudly roasting, pedaling, and brewing outstanding coffee since 1996. Under Lees leadership the company has garnered local, national, and international recognition from being named one of the 10 Most Sustainable Coffee Businesses in the U.S. by Civil Eats, to earning the Best Coffee Roaster title by Minnesota Monthly and Growler magazines, to being recognized as one of the top places to work by Minnesota Business Magazine. The company has also been honored with list placements on Best for the World, Community, B Corp, 2018, and 2019; Ten Most Sustainable U.S. Coffee Businesses; and Most Ethical Coffee Companies, Fair World Project. What you'll learn about in this episode: Lee's journey as a female leader in the coffee industry How Lee made the transition from consultant to entrepreneur The lesson's Lee learned as she navigated the uncharted territory of entrepreneurship How Lee funded her business and got it on its feet How to center yourself in your goals, stick to your vision, and execute What it takes to operate at the intersection of mission and money What the future holds for Peace Coffee in 2021 Where Lee finds inspiration Resources: Website: https://www.peacecoffee.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-wallace-78319a7/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/peace-coffee/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeaceCoffeeMN/ Twitter: @peace_coffee Instagram: @peace_coffee The Queen Bean Lee Wallace is the owner and Queen Bean of Peace Coffee, a company on a mission to craft a delicious coffee experience with communities around the globe. She operates at the intersection of mission and money, bringing thought leadership and expertise to audiences in social enterprise businesses, fair trade enterprises, and specialty coffee importers. In this episode of the Intentional Greatness podcast, Lee joins us to share her journey as a female leader, and the story behind Peace Coffee. She explains how she navigated the uncharted territory of entrepreneurship and pursued her passion. Follow Your Passion Lee has always been interested in the concept of using entrepreneurial tools to solve problems in society and to fuel work that has a distinctive mission behind it. Initially, this manifested itself as a career in consulting. However, during her time as a consultant, she had the opportunity to work with a client that she immediately fell in love with. Lee found her passion and purpose in the coffee industry, joined her client's team, and eventually, she purchased the company from them in 2016. Believe it or not, she had never anticipated becoming an entrepreneur, but we can learn from her experience. Don't let your fears and limiting beliefs deter you from following the path that your passions lead to. There is so much to gain from listening to your intuition. Stick With Your Vision When Lee made the transition from consultant to entrepreneur, she had to be quick on her feet. If entrepreneurship is a path you're considering, the lessons Lee shares are of great value. It is easy to get stuck in your bubble while trying to get the business on its feet, but if you deviate from the mission and core values that drove you to pursue your dream in the first place, it will not be sustainable. As a business owner and leader, it is critical to center yourself in what your goal is and create a concrete plan to get there. Stick with your vision and execute it.

Coffee can be a force for good. Here's how. | Peace Coffee: peacecoffee.com | Learn about Fair Trade: https://novelhand.com/b-corp-fairtrade/ | Learn more at novelhand.com

Lee Wallace leads Peace Coffee and advocates for farmer partners, their land, and the wellbeing of everyone along the supply chain.

The Ocean - The Space of the Earth! Today, we talk about the history of ocean exploration and some pretty cool ocean facts. Our coffee of choice is a dark roast called the Tree Hugger Blend by Peace Coffee.

  The only thing better than a cold brew coffee...

CEO Lee handles the day-to-day operations of Peace Coffee, a growing coffee business, with her cattle dog, Ruby, by her side. She was recently named Twin Cities Business Magazine’s Top 100 People to Know. Show Notes:          Visit us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter; bobby@gomahi.com Some podcasts Lee loves: BevNET (with food entrepreneurs), Startup, Without Fail 43:40 – Quick Fire Questions WEEKLY HACK: Don’t sweat the small stuff this week. Take a step back, take the long vision.

In a country torn by war one organization is literally sowing seeds of peace and hope through coffee. Mighty Peace Coffee is a next generation impact company working directly with coffee cooperatives in the Democratic Republic of Congo to end poverty and conflict, bring about economic transformation through community and capacity-building, and international advocacy.  Today we get to talk with 3 of the leaders of this organization: Liza Elena Pitsirilos, JD Stier, and Jim N. Ngokwey (See their bios below!) They take us behind the scenes of Mighty Peace and discuss the founding, evolution, mission, and challenges they face in fighting for the people of the DRC. We also discuss their quality control, approach to marketing, and what hey believe is needed from retailers to help smaller producing countries like the DRC gain more traction and success in the global specialty market. This is a great organization doing fantastic work and I hope you are inspired by this interview!     LINKS: WWW.MIGHTYPEACECOFFEE.COM Get roasted Congolese Coffee delivered : Patreon Monthly Membership  Mighty Peace Coffee on Facebook Email for green buyers: info@mightypeacecoffee.com      Guest Bios: Liza Elena Pitsirilos / CEO, Partner  Born and raised in New York City, Liza has developed her executive Midas touch as an expert educator, wellness leader, and successful entrepreneur, leading Fortune 500 corporate culture creation, coaching, and sales team retreats. After earning a political science degree from the University of Wisconsin, Liza spent the following decade working overseas with high risk communities earning a Master's Degree in Education, working with immigrant populations, and mastering the art of corporate leadership through facilitating workshops and trainings for over 200 companies. In 2018, she began her Mighty Peace Coffee adventure. Liza leads the all-women executive team from her homes in Madison and NYC, where she emphasizes family values, time with loved ones, respect for the land, environment, and planning sustainably for future generations. Liza leads health and wellness retreats for women in Miami, NYC, and all those a part of the Mighty Peace tribe.    JD Stier / Chairman, Partner Born in Atlanta Georgia in the 1970s, raised by a civil rights attorney father and catholic faith leader mother, and with social justice at his core, JD began visiting the African Great Lakes as a university student alongside his housemate, a refugee from African Great Lakes conflicts. Over the decades, JD has worked with local communities as an organizer, human rights defender, award winning documentary filmmaker, and an advocate ally for the Congolese-led development of local economies. Invited to keynote at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, LSE, and over 100 centers for thought and policy leadership, JD argues the key to Congo peace is in charting its own economic path forward.  After having been asked to support local coffee cooperatives, JD offered to assemble the international business and marketing team needed to support the Congolese coffee cooperatives as they transform local economies. JD served in the Obama White House and has founded and led myriad initiatives aimed at ending armed conflicts and spurring economic development, including Stand With Congo. JD lives in New York City and Madison, Wisconsin with his true love, Liza, CEO of Mighty Peace Coffee.    Jim N. Ngokwey / Partner, Business Development Jim N. Ngokwey was born in Senegal, lives in New York City, hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo and is a proud Pan-African. He is passionate about Africa, business and development and is committed to using his expertise and resources to empower African entrepreneurs and drive wealth creation. He is also actively involved in various non-profit organizations, as a management team member in Young African MBAs, a non-profit with a mission to bridge Africa’s management talent gap. He also proudly volunteers for Malaika, a school for girls in Kalebuka, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As part of his work with the Sub-Saharan Africa Chamber of Commerce, he conducted an exploratory trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo to study the country’s business environment. The outcome was the DRC Investment Opportunity Report which focused on the risks and rewards of investing in SMEs in the country. He is proud to lead Mighty Peace Coffee’s Business Development and is excited to play a role in helping the organization reach its immense potential. 

Dara chats about Fall drinks with Peace Coffee founder Lee Wallace and Bushel to Bottle Festival coordinator Melissa Waskiewicz.  Our host also provides her top Winter squash recipes.

Lee Wallace worked at Peace Coffee, a fair-trade coffee company started in Minneapolis. This year she bought the company to continue the work of being a good company that does good. (ep.97) Support the showFollow the Makers of Minnesota on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @MakersofMN. Send story ideas to Stephanie@stephaniesdish.com If you appreciate the work we do here, please subscribe on Patreon Please subscribe to My newsletter at https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/ so you don't miss an epiosde of the Makers of Minnesota This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Lee Wallace worked at Peace Coffee, a fair-trade coffee company started in Minneapolis. This year she bought the company to continue the work of being a good company that does good. (ep.97) Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/StephanieHansen)

Lee Wallace worked at Peace Coffee, a fair-trade coffee company started in Minneapolis. This year she bought the company to continue the work of being a good company that does good. (ep.97) Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/StephanieHansen)

I talk to my friend Brickyard from Minnesota RollerGirls about her roller derby career. We talk about other things, too- running, athletics, a bunch of stuff. We recorded this outside Peace Coffee so you'll hear some traffic in the background but I think it kind of adds to the natural atmosphere. Shoot me an email at mpls.podcast@gmail.com

IATP launched the first 100% fair trade organic coffee company in 1996. As the company has grown, we realized it was time to set it free to keep growing and doing good work. In this episode, Josh talks with Lee Wallace, longtime CEO of Peace Coffee, who, along with her business partner, Kent Pilakowski, has assumed ownership of the company.

NOTE: This is an encore presentation of an episode that first aired on July 11, 2016. Advice from Lee Wallace is featured in the book, Crazy Good Advice: 10 Lessons Learned from 150 Leading Social Entrepreneurs. To hear the original, extended interview, go here: https://tonyloyd.com/096.    Smallholder farmers grow more than half of the coffee consumed worldwide. Imagine if you will, that you are working at a non-profit in Minnesota, focusing on public policy. The phone rings, and the person on the other end says “Hello. This is the Port of Los Angeles. We have 38,000 pounds of green coffee with your name on it. How would you like to pick this up?” You know nothing about coffee or roasting or retail. What would you do? That is exactly what happened twenty years ago at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. In today’s Social Entrepreneur, Lee Wallace, the Queen Bean of Peace Coffee tells us the rest of the story. Peace Coffee is a for-profit social enterprise, owned by a nonprofit, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Peace Coffee has a wholesale business that they have been running for about two decades. They also have four retail coffee shops within the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Last year Peace Coffee purchased 735,000 lbs. of coffee from 12 countries and 20 smallholder farmer cooperatives. In the process, Peace Coffee paid $370,000 in fair trade premiums. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Lee Wallace “We think hard about how to do the right thing for coffee farmers.” “Our customers named us.” “I was trying to find a career that made sense to me in terms of my passions.” “What I was trying to do was find places that sit at the nexus of mission and money.” “Pretty quickly I realized that this is a magical place for me.” “I have always been interested in how organizations work.” “We spend a lot of our time at work.” “The Twin Cities is an amazing place to learn about natural foods because we have such a vibrant and thriving co-op ecosystem.” “My dad really wanted us to understand the history of industry as it came in and out of communities and how that really impacted families in those communities.” “The original idea was that we would be an importer of all kinds of things.” “More than 50% of the world’s coffee farmers, farm coffee on very small parcels of land.” “We come this work with the sense that, what we’re doing is working on trying to elevate the livelihood of an awful lot of people who historically have been very disadvantaged when it comes to the way trade works.” “It’s livelihood, but its community development too.” “Co-ops are stepping in and playing the role of civil society in these communities.” “People in these communities have ideas and know how they’re going to make their communities better. Our job is to be a good partner on the other side of that.” “We have a price floor…We believe that below this level is unsustainable for coffee farmers.” “This company existing 10 years from now is more important than what is happening this month. This company is bigger than all of us.” “You’d be amazed at who would be willing to talk to you.” Social Entrepreneurship Resources: Peace Coffee: https://www.peacecoffee.com/ Peace Coffee on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Peace-Coffee-26583664405/ Peace Coffee on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peace_coffee/ Peace Coffee on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Peace_Coffee Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy: http://www.iatp.org/ Book: Crazy Good Advice: 10 Lessons Learned from 150 Leading Social Entrepreneurs: https://tonyloyd.com/book

A colaboração entre Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin de sua graça) e Iggy Pop, "The Pure and the Damned", é a espinha dorsal de mais uma colagem sonora do Coffee Breakz. Dela ramificam incursões por "Untitled" do canadiano Buck 65, por "Are You in Peace?" do compositor americano Steve Lehman e Sélébéyone (um septeto que inclui Kyle Austin, aka HPrizm, fundador dos Antipop Consortium, e o senegalês Gaston Bandimic) e por "Blue Train Blues", um tema que junta Mount Kimbie e King Krule.

This week we zero in on a bill in the Iowa Legislature that requires cars to change lanes to pass bicyclists and could affect bike laws nationwide. Drew Ditlefsen, a bike delivery man for Peace Coffee in Minneapolis, shares his colorful stories from years of biking for work in all kinds of weather (and dodging the occasional Molotov cocktail). We also catch up with the folks over at Cycle Oregon to talk about their ride which has hit its 30th year!

Smallholder farmers grow more than half of the coffee consumed worldwide. Imagine if you will, that you are working at a non-profit in Minnesota, focusing on public policy. The phone rings, and the person on the other end says “Hello. This is the Port of Los Angeles. We have 38,000 pounds of green coffee with your name on it. How would you like to pick this up?” You know nothing about coffee or roasting or retail. What would you do? That is exactly what happened twenty years ago at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. In today’s Social Entrepreneur, Lee Wallace, the Queen Bean of Peace Coffee tells us the rest of the story. Peace Coffee is a for-profit social enterprise, owned by a nonprofit, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Peace Coffee has a wholesale business that they have been running for about two decades. They also have four retail coffee shops within the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Last year Peace Coffee purchased 735,000 lbs. of coffee from 12 countries and 20 smallholder farmer cooperatives. In the process, Peace Coffee paid $370,000 in fair trade premiums. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Lee Wallace “We think hard about how to do the right thing for coffee farmers.” “Our customers named us.” “I was trying to find a career that made sense to me in terms of my passions.” “What I was trying to do was find places that sit at the nexus of mission and money.” “Pretty quickly I realized that this is a magical place for me.” “I have always been interested in how organizations work.” “We spend a lot of our time at work.” “The Twin Cities is an amazing place to learn about natural foods because we have such a vibrant and thriving co-op ecosystem.” “My dad really wanted us to understand the history of industry as it came in and out of communities and how that really impacted families in those communities.” “The original idea was that we would be an importer of all kinds of things.” “More than 50% of the world’s coffee farmers, farm coffee on very small parcels of land.” “We come this work with the sense that, what we’re doing is working on trying to elevate the livelihood of an awful lot of people who historically have been very disadvantaged when it comes to the way trade works.” “It’s livelihood, but its community development too.” “Co-ops are stepping in and playing the role of civil society in these communities.” “People in these communities have ideas and know how they’re going to make their communities better. Our job is to be a good partner on the other side of that.” “We have a price floor…We believe that below this level is unsustainable for coffee farmers.” “This company existing 10 years from now is more important than what is happening this month. This company is bigger than all of us.” “You’d be amazed at who would be willing to talk to you.” Social Entrepreneurship Resources: Peace Coffee: https://www.peacecoffee.com/ Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy: http://www.iatp.org/ Upcoming Webinar: How to Make a Difference while Making a Living (HINT: No Ramen Noodles Required) On July 20, 2016 at Noon US Central time, I am hosting the webinar, “How to Make a Difference while Making a Living (HINT: No Ramen Noodles Required).” In this webinar I will be talking about: How to go from being a compassion person to being a changemaker How to overcome the five most common roadblocks to being a changemaker The seven key characteristics of successful changemakers The ten steps on the path to changemaking During the webinar, we will be giving away fabulous gifts and prizes. You won’t want to miss this. Register for the webinar today: http://tonyloyd.com/difference .

Drink coffee? One, two, three cups a day? Now multiply that simple act by several hundred million people every day. It’s hard to imagine the mountain of coffee beans needed to satisfy that thirst. Now, consider that those beans could work not only to create delicious brews, but also to produce a fair wage for […]

Tufts University Jewish Chaplain and Executive Director of Tufts Hillel for 34 years, Rabbi Jeffrey Summit and photojournalist Richard Sobol presented a multimedia talk about their involvement with Delicious Peace. It is a story of coffee, music and world peace. The coffee is grown by more than 1000 Christian, Muslim and Jews who live in a rural region of Uganda and are members of a fair trade cooperative called "Peace Kawomera" - kawomera means in "delicious" in Luganda. The farmers make music together, music that Summit found so inspirational that he had to share it with the world. This talk was sponsored by the Office for Religious Life. Cosponsors: Catholic Community at Stanford, Episcopal Lutheran Campus Ministry, Hillel at Stanford, Islamic Student Society at Stanford, the Peace+Justice Studies Initiative, Department of Music and Taube Center for Jewish Studies.