Salt Spring Coffee is filling Canadians’ cups with positive impact. Learn how they’re brewing up good for people and planet in this exclusive interview with Veronica Meas, Digital Marketing Specialist.
Did you know that Canada is one of the top global consumers of coffee? Canadians love our coffee; it’s one of our simple pleasures. The only thing better would be saving the world as we drink it.
Salt Spring Coffee set out on a mission to do just that: use coffee to be a force for good. We chatted with Digital Marketing Specialist Veronica Meas about Salt Spring Coffee’s goals, and what makes this company unique.
Our mission is to change the world for the better through coffee. Salt Spring Coffee wants to use coffee as the vehicle to be a force of good. Coffee allows us to make a positive impact along our supply chain, which includes communities from where we source our coffee all the way to our staff, our customers, and our community.
Inspired by the Salt Spring Island way of life, founders Mickey McLeod and Robbyn Scott embarked on a journey to bring sustainable coffee to their community.
In their quest for coffee that was environmentally friendly and fair to farmers, they built long-term partnerships with producers to source organic, shade-grown, fair trade coffee.
Salt Spring Coffee’s greatest success is setting high standards from the beginning so we can provide access to coffee that is traded fairly and grown sustainably.
For us, success isn’t based solely on profit, but also purpose – we will never compromise people, the environment, or quality for the sake of generating more profit.
Salt Spring Coffee was a trailblazer and among the first coffee companies in Canada to offer organic, fair trade coffee.
What makes us unique is that not only are we organic and Fair Trade Certified, we are also a certified B Corp. While organic and fair trade certifications verify our products, B Corp certification verifies our practices and impact on people and the environment. It’s a third-party audit that helps us measure and constantly improve our social and environmental impact.
Salt Spring Coffee sources organic, shade-grown coffee. This means that instead of clear cutting forests to grow coffee in an industrial fashion, coffee is grown in its natural environment under tree canopies.
Shade-grown coffee preserves natural biodiversity, protects the ecosystem, and helps prevent soil erosion. Better soil quality means that coffee can be grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
Salt Spring Coffee is also Fair Trade and Fair For Life certified. This means that producers are paid a fair price plus an additional premium on top of the cost of coffee that goes toward the producer’s community. Additionally, Fair Trade also ensures fair working conditions that are free from discrimination, child labour, and forced labour.
Salt Spring Coffee is proof that businesses can be successful while making business decisions that are better for people and the planet.
Our goal is to make sustainable, fair trade coffee available to everyone. We currently offer whole bean and ground coffee, but we know that customers also enjoy other methods of brewing, such as using pods.
We will continue to develop our offerings to include additional formats so that sustainable, fair trade coffee is available to all coffee drinkers.
We’re working on a plan to invest in energy efficient equipment that will help us significantly decrease our greenhouse gas emissions.
Additionally, we participate in a waste diversion program that tracks our weekly waste diversion. We are putting together a plan to help us get to Zero Waste by 2026.
Twenty-five years later, Salt Spring Coffee is still family-owned and operated, and our aspiration remains the same: To be change makers through coffee – doing our part to make the world a better place.
People can help with Salt Spring Coffee’s mission by supporting organic, fair trade, and B Corp companies. By supporting these companies, people have the power to show businesses that they want to buy from brands that care about more than just the bottom line. It can help create a world where every business has a positive impact on the people and the environment.
This story was featured in the Make The World Better magazine:
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