Trail Blazing for Fair Trade Coffee

A roaster first and foremost, Peace Coffee captivates consumers with high-quality fair trade coffee and a sense of belonging.

Written by Payton DeMaster // Minneapolis, MN

Whether it be by foot in store, two-wheel bike delivery, or a mobile coffee truck, Peace Coffee will find a way to get 100% fair trade coffee into your hands. Started by accident 24 years ago, Peace Coffee now has a growing roastery, four coffee shops, and one coffee truck all surrounding the greater Minneapolis-Saint Paul Area of Minnesota.

How Peace Started

Peace’s Director of Marketing, Melanee Meegan, and Associate Director of Sales and Customer Experience, Stacy McCoy, give some insight on how Peace Coffee started, their plans for the future, and their passion for fair trade coffee.

“It began with receiving two containers full of coffee from Mexico,” said Meegan. “At that point, we did just about anything to sell the coffee including going door-to-door, visiting co-ops and grocery stores, and delivering to all of our accounts on bikes.”

Peace Coffee was started by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a non-profit with a mission to help American farmers during the family farm crisis in the 1980s. They then discovered that surrounding countries needed the most help.

In 1996, Peace coffee received their first shipment from Chiapas, Mexico. Since then, the coffee Peace purchases is 100% fair trade certified, organic coffee from small-scale farmers.

“Currently we import coffee from 12 different countries, and around 20 different farmer co-ops,” said McCoy. “We work collectively with other national roasters through our co-op, Cooperative Coffees to find new coffee sources. We require that all coffee imported needs to be organic and 100% fair trade.”

A Roaster First 

Roasting 4000 pounds of coffee a day and trying to keep up with the demand for three-days of stock on the shelf, they saw a need for an expansion in their roasting facility. With this expansion, they hope to double their capacity in the next seven years. Ultimately, they want to continue introducing people to the art and craft of roasting.

“We are a roaster first and foremost,” said Meegan. “Right now, we want to highlight the art and craft of roasting, this is what we’ve been doing since day one.”

Community Minded

With a well-known presence in the Midwest, and being the predominate trailblazers for fair trade coffee, Peace Coffee continues to be passionate about more than just roasting and selling coffee, they want to have a positive effect on local communities too.

“We hope that some of the things we do inspire consumers to visit us, and other coffee shops to copy us,” stated Meegan. “For instance, we’d love if everyone wanted to serve 100% fair trade coffee, or participate in bike deliveries, that would be awesome!”