Feedback for Impact: Putting QC to good use

Quality Control. It’s intricately built into the fabric of speciality coffee, a part of the daily routine for roasters, baristas, importers, exporters, and farm managers. After all, how can we ensure the quality that speciality is built on if we don’t control it?

Putting aside the slightly ludicrous idea that we can somehow control the quality of a natural product that is prone to the whims of the ecology it grows in, let alone all the hands it passes through to get to the cup (frankly it’s a miracle coffee tastes so good so frequently!). The largest issue with QC is the binary nature of its application.

Let’s narrow our focus a little, tear ourselves away from the wider view of the value stream and concentrate on the import/export of green coffee. For it is here that QC is perhaps most crucial to the sale of coffee. The physical and sensorial properties that are measured include, moisture content, water activity, density, SCA/CQI sensory score, defect count, UV analysis, and screen size.

These are then compared against contrast expectations and export regulations, to ensure they meet specifications prior to shipping, and again on landing in the consuming country. Contracts can specify a number of qualities and/or sensory profiles, and this is where the binary nature shows itself. Based on these samples, contracts are either rejected, or approved.

This isn’t usually an issue for the producer or smallholder, as they have already been paid and the risk that comes with refusal has been passed downstream. But it also doesn’t help them much. All of this work at laboratories around the world actually has very little impact on either the quality of the coffee, or its viability as a saleable product.

Which raises a question: how (and when) can you give feedback to producers in a manner that will have a tangible impact on not only the coffee they produce, but also their livelihoods?

The answer is rarely and with a light touch. Any feedback given can have wide ranging effects, carry unintended consequences, and create risk for the producers. To enter into this discussion without this in mind perpetuates the power dynamics that are at the heart of the inequalities that plague the value stream. Too often have those downstream asked for special processes, changes in variety, changes in farming practice etc; without either the requisite knowledge or the assumption of the risk involved. But it’s not impossible…

At Raw Material, we work in several countries where we are partners in the upstream operations, notably Timor Leste, and Burundi. In both countries, our Belfast based lab acts as both the pre-ship and landed QC centre, and provides valuable and tangible feedback that has been able to have real impact.