Harvest to Pour: Business of Beverages

Prime Coffee Company & Upshot coffee: With Junior Silva and Conor VanBuskirk - Stronger roaster-grower relationships help small coffee farms thrive.

Episode Summary

In this episode we talk with Junior Silva, the co-founder of Prime Coffee Company, and Connor VanBuskirk, the founder of Upshot Coffee. They discussed the relationship between Junior’s family's coffee farm in Brazil and Upshot Coffee. Junior explained how he started working with specialty coffee to get a better price for his father's farm. Connor helped Junior understand how to score and market his coffee. They talked about the challenges small farms face and how specialty roasters can help by connecting farms to buyers and paying higher prices for unique, high-quality coffee.

Episode Notes

Key Points:

Junior Silva started Prime Coffee Company to get a better price for his family's farm in Brazil by connecting to specialty coffee markets.
Connor helped Junior understand coffee scoring, pricing, and identifying potential buyers to establish trust and sell his green coffee.
Small farms face challenges like pressure to sell quickly and lack of knowledge about fair prices.
Specialty roasters can help farms by connecting them directly to buyers and paying higher specialty prices.
Events like coffee tastings help promote individual farms and cultures while supporting the farmers financially.
Direct relationships between roasters and farms through visits and multi-year contracts benefit both parties.
Knowledge sharing between farms and roasters, like processing experiments, improves quality and opportunities for both.

Junior Silva