There are hundreds of coffees available on Algrano’s marketplace at any given day. Producers on more than 20 origins maintain a live offer list year-round. Half of the volume is of 80-84 points coffee lots. The other half is 85+. It’s a lot to choose from.
Behind a roastery’s buying decision
While quality is still the first criteria to choose coffee for your roastery, chances are you’ll end up pre-selecting many samples when you start, and more than one will be a good quality fit. So your buying decision will depend on your sourcing strategy and what matters to you as a business.
As one of the first roasteries to source coffee through Algrano, Rast Kaffee has been there. They are a four-generation family business in Switzerland managed by sisters Evelyne and Beatrice. The roastery, winner of the Swiss Roaster of the Year Award in 2022, has nearly 60 coffees from more than 30 producers on the menu.
One of their key partners is Sancoffee, a cooperative in Campo das Vertentes, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Beatrice Rast started talking to Fabrício Andrade, Sancoffee’s CEO, on Algrano in 2016. She’s been buying their coffees for single-variety offers and blends since. It’s a core relationship to the roastery. How did they get here?
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Defining the roastery’s key values
Rast values quality and sustainability. For them, a strong quality strategy starts with “the careful and responsible selection of the producers”. Sustainability comes from “personal relationships with the coffee producers and permanent dialogue”. That’s why Beatrice turned to direct trade.
The green buyer starts her sourcing process with a blind cupping, like every other roaster. She has five or six samples on the table, chosen based on the country and flavour profile she’s looking for. She also defines the certification, volume, and price range she needs. But that’s only the beginning.
Once Beatrice narrows down the options on the cupping table, the roastery’s values guide her buying decisions. “As we’re a family-run business, we have a bias to work with other family-owned businesses”, she says.
Rast often looks for producers with a shared business mindset. “Sustainability is a key topic for us, whether it’s fair coffee price, forest preservation or community building,” Beatrice says. “We’re looking for attitude and ambition. Sustainability is immensely complex. Also, on the roaster side, we’re far from perfect. Whenever we can contribute beyond just buying coffee, we have an open ear.”
The Algrano idea always struck us as clever, right from the start. It’s intuitive, matching you with producers that you can identify with and talk to them directly. Because, at its core, the coffee business is a very personal affair, and builds on trust.
Beatrice Rast, Rast Kaffee
A consistent menu with good practices
Customer needs play a big role too. Though Rast’s menu has space for “exotic” coffees and limited editions, the roastery supplies many restaurants and big companies. “In this space, we go for consistency. These are bigger volumes, and we’re not set up to run the selection process from scratch every year. As a result, we build long-term partnerships.”
This combination of values and needs is what made Sancoffee such a great choice for Rast. The cooperative is B Corp, formed by 20 family farms to produce consistent regional blends year after year. They are also carbon neutral and invests in many impact projects. They won the Specialty Coffee Association’s Sustainability Award in 2024.
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Sancoffee also has a young team, motivated by a lot more than just selling coffee. This was key for Beatrice on a personal level. “Coffee is very much a personal business built on trust. We're interested in developing partnerships with producers on equal footing.”
For her, partnerships with producers are not about audits, control or aid. “We expect and demand quality, and we’re happy to pay a good price for that. A price that is calculated and offered by the producer”, Beatrice explains.
The roaster believes the coffee supply chain can get better with good, and simple, business practices. “Our biggest leverage is economics. With the right attitude, we can support economic sustainability, which allows investing in social and environmental projects.”
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The benefit: zero quality risk
Having sourced coffee from Sancoffee for eight years, Rast doesn’t need Algrano to do quality assurance anymore. They do it themselves. While quality risk is a real thing in untraceable supply chains, it’s not a big concern in stablished relationships, when roasters have received coffee from the same producer many times.
“We haven’t had any bad experiences in terms of quality, fraud or similar. If you’re buying coffee closer to the c-price, you’re much more exposed to fraud risk or misaligned incentives”, Beatrice reflects. “But we’re not trading on the stock exchange. We’re building a network of relationships we can rely on for long periods of time, and we reward quality work.”
For first-time relationships, Algrano takes care of the quality risk. Our Verified Seller program creates trust that the producer will deliver the best product. We also do quality assurance to ensure your the quality of your coffee is kept throughout exporting and shipping. It’s a no brainer.
Algrano also rewards long-term relationships like Rast and Sancoffee’s. As the partnership progresses over time, our service fee declines. The producer gets paid the same, you get the same quality, and you pay less at checkout <<link>>. Pretty sweet, right?
Today, the roastery has what they need secured for the wholesale accounts who want a stable coffee. Not having to source her volume coffee from scratch every year also gives her more time to find different micro-lots for curious retail customers.
