Case Study Of The Supply Chain Challenges At Company X Coffee Roasters

Supply Chain Challenges at Company X Coffee Roasters
Attila Nagy-Domokos, November 2014.

Executive Summary

The Coffee industry faces serious challenges in regards of sustainability. This essay describes and evaluates possible solutions that the technical operation team and international organisations generated. This essay is intended to provide the executive board with background information to access the feasibility of a proposal they have been asked to assess.

Introduction

Company X is a 150 years old UK based organisation started out as a tea blending and wholesaling business. in 1950 the family owned company started to sell coffee then opened to the coffee brewing markets too and started to sell machines to offices, restaurants and
The two most common types of coffee beans are the sweeter tasting and more sensitive Arabica and the more bitter but resistant Robusta.
Coffee plants are cultivated mostly in the warm equatorial region of South America, Africa and South-East Asia with no frost or sudden temperature shifts. The harvesting of the red coffee berries has to be performed by hand, and in several rounds as the berries do not all ripen at the same time. The green beans inside the berry have to be separated from the skin and pulp. The way to do this is either by the 'wet' method (berries are pulped, fermented and washed, dried, peeled and polished), or the 'dry' method (berries are dried and hulled). The end product of this process is called 'green' coffee. These dry green coffee beans are roasted, then ground before they are consumed.
Green coffee beans produced in over 70 countries which of over 50 is developing. It provides a livelihood for 25 million farmers and their families and can account for up to 50% of export earnings of some countries. Securing a healthy world coffee economy is important economically, socially, environmentally and
These cooperatives have 200 - 250.000 members. The company has contributed over $3miilion (US) to community and farm projects through Fairtrade levies to date. The remaining 10% of its green coffee comes from independent coffee farmers, with whom the company has decade long direct trading relationships built on mutual trust. The product is shipped directly to the UK using MAERSK as a trusted and economic shipping agent. The beans are shippes by containers and a shipping cost (which is less than 1% of the retail price of the coffee) paid by Company X.
The green beans are roasted in one of the 18 roasteries - this is a resilience built into the operation, then delivered by Company X’s own fleet to customers over UK & Ireland.

Because Company X is a family owned business inheriting old markets and processes, its supply chain framework naturally grown to be a 3T’s