Office ciao, warehouse ciao: cumpa comes to you. A new strategy

We started in 2018: with roughly 9t of green coffee and the mission to make green coffee from our friendships in Peru available to roasters throughout the region and beyond. A lot has happened since then. Together with strong helpers we have unloaded 170t of green coffee, stored it and picked it for customers. After we occupied a small office with warehouse in Hertstraße 16 in Herrenberg in 2020, we moved to Einsteinstraße 13 in Herrenberg at the beginning of 2021. We have loved the warehouse and office here ever since, as well as the community with COFYMI and the roasting chamber. A small specialty coffee headquarters was created. Regularly roasters visited us for a cupping, or to pick up coffee. We held small events, sometimes with more, sometimes with less attendance. After four and a half years of cumpa, and especially after the difficult year 2022 (read more about it here), we are now evaluating the situation.

Our warehouse and office have added great value to our business. We became importers to touch and visit. Many customers have taken advantage of our offer to visit us relatively spontaneously, have a coffee with us and take goods with them. That is what we love about our work: The contact with customers, the exchange about coffee. The balancing act of standing on a finca one moment and talking to coffee farmers about the requirements of roasters, and standing in a roastery or café the next moment and talking to roasters about the requirements of farmers. We see ourselves as ambassadors and friends, connectors of people along the coffee supply chains. We want to promote the international spirit and make coffee more sustainable with humane values, loyalty, science and cleverness.

Therefore, in the same breath, we must also say: unloading containers, commissioning, hauling bags – this should not be our job. The physical movement of 170t of green coffee took a lot of time and sweat, and also left physical marks. We could further develop the logistics part of our work ourselves, acquire personnel and focus on this part of the work. But we don’t want to do that, because others can already do it better and cheaper. We believe that it is in the best interest of the supply chain if we conserve resources as much as possible in logistics and focus entirely on our real goal: Creating connections.

We are setting ourselves up as a mobile company. In the first quarter of 2023, we will be leaving our office. We have considered this step thoroughly and it was not a decision to be taken lightly. But we believe it is the only right one. Our workplace is moving back to the home office and towards our customers. We want to rotate even more in roasteries and fulfill our cumpa ambassador work. In addition, this move lowers our costs, allowing us to offer better conditions. We will maintain our warehouse until September 30, 2023, and until then, customers who have previously resorted to self-collection can continue to drop by for pickup at the Einsteinstraße warehouse by appointment. From now on, we will send new coffee deliveries to the Schwarze und Consorten warehouse in Hamburg. In the future, this will give customers the opportunity to consolidate mixed pallets with other coffees from import colleagues. For us, time will be freed up again for more visits to customers, events, further training and exchanges with customers and suppliers.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, we will also move out of the warehouse and store exclusively at Schwarze und Consorten in Hamburg. A container of cumpa Kuntu Organic is already stored there. From here, we will call off entire pallets of Kuntu Organic for our larger customers, for which we will be able to offer 20 cents per kilogram cheaper than for the Kuntu Organic from Herrenberg. This is roughly equivalent to the additional cost of sending a pallet from Hamburg to Herrenberg. We are already sending our new Vietnam container to Hamburg. From then on we can also offer mixed pallets.

We are looking forward to the new time, more flexibility, less lugging and more efficient coffee trade. But we also know that this is a lot of change. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.



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