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COFFEE TALK
Wake up Utah & Smell the Coffee, Caffe Ibis Brings Quality to You
by Victoria Kerns
Located in the Historic District of Logan, Utah, this unpretentious coffee shop/hugely successful coffee roasting company, owned by Randy and Sally Wirth, has been brewing up business for 26 years. Randy is originally from Palo Alto, California where he was a competitive surfer. Randy decided to pursue his education in Logan at Utah State University where he studied Demography. Randy has not only served coffee but he served in Vietnam. Ironically, he met his wife through an anti-war group at Utah State. The couple married in the Quaker faith. Sally is from New York and has family in Utah. She is the advertising specialist for the company.
The couple started business in natural food services,
making healthy food alternatives available in
1974 and have continued to offer the public healthy
alternative food & beverage choices over the
years, incorporating healthy business practices
at the same time. Randy’s mentor, deceased
wildlife biologist and “eternal optimist”
Allen Stokes, was instrumental in the development
of Randy’s professional business ethics.
At this point Randy says that he is, “Too
old to worry about just making money, I have to
feel good about what I’m doing.” When
it comes to making business decisions Randy asks
himself what Allen would think of the decisions
before him.
Randy is an artist/craftsman in his work. He truly
cares about his business and those affected by
his business practices. He is knowledgeable and
well trained. It is Randy’s high standards
that keep the company progressing at a manageable
rate without loosing sight of their objectives.
Rather than to operating in several chaotic directions
at once, Randy peacefully resides in the realization
that the business is “too small to do it
all.”
Randy has experienced a 35% growth this past year,
through the café, market, and roasting/selling
coffee beans wholesale. He also does consulting
and as a result, helped 60 other business owners
start up companies this past year. The Caffe Ibis
staff is currently updating the web site and computer
system at the roasting site to increase efficiency.
It is the only triple-certified coffee supplier
in Utah (70 of the coffees are certified organic,
40 are Fair Trade certified, and 25 are certified
Bird Friendly through the Smithsonian). Certification
is difficult to maintain and involves a sophisticated
tracking system (which can trace the coffee back
to the grower, the exact field it was grown on,
and date of the harvest, all from a code located
on each bag of coffee beans), quarterly reports
and annual spot inspections. Because of the nature
of the cooling process used after roasting the
company uses special triple layered bags with
air valves on them to aid in the process of ensuring
the highest flavor quality of the beans. Randy
knows the business, the market and the industry.
The machinery he uses to roast and brew coffees
is compatible with the quality of coffee used.
Randy also offers technical support on the equipment
he recommends. He is interested first in quality,
second, in supporting a good cause. Two roasters
are housed at the warehouse (and one at the market).
Randy says that the art of producing coffee is
lost in mass production; therefore they “roast
to order.”
The organic coffees he sells are naturally lower
in caffeine than coffees offered in supermarkets
and no pesticides are used in the growth or processing
of the beans. The dark roast is Cafe Ibis’
specialty coffee. It offers 14 different espressos
and decaf makes up 10-15% of the sales. Its best
selling coffee is the Triple Roast, then the French
roast, then the French decaf. If you like the
‘Blues,’ stop in the cafe where there
is live music two times a week. You will also
find spices, herbs and teas in the market along
with commercial coffee and tea accessories. Caffe
Ibis will create custom gift packages for your
special occasion. The Caffe also sells cards and
baskets separately.
With the assistance of its beautifully designed
brochure, “Your Passport to World Coffee”,
we learn that Caffe Ibis seeks to provide its
customers with mountain grown/roasted, fresh and
quality specialty coffee while providing due respect
and fair compensation to the people who labor
to bring its products here. Ibis endeavors to
respect and safeguard the environment and utilize
purchasing practices that support organically
grown and shade grown coffee, a sustainable coffee
future and social and environmental responsibility.
It also wishes to honor and respect its partners,
employees and customers in these endeavors. Caffe
Ibis has been recognized as a “Green Business”
for its practices in educating the community about
environmental ethics and encouraging waste reduction
and the reuse of resources. The Caffe Ibis team
supports several local, state, national and international
causes including women, family, and environmental
issues. Ibis is a supporter of Coffee Kids. It
also received an award for historic preservation
in Logan’s downtown business district.
The company’s name comes from a compilation
of specially related words. Caffe is one of the
oldest words for coffee and is derived from Northern
Italy. The Ibis is a marshland bird located on
every continent surviving in environmentally sensitive
habitats. The bird is considered to be an indicator
species of the health of the world’s environment.
The Egyptian Ibis was believed to provide the
means to heaven and was buried with Pharaohs.
Therefore Caffe Ibis can be translated to mean
Heavenly Coffee.
Caffe Ibis carries one of the most extensive lines
of Certified Shade Grown Coffees, Certified Organic
Coffees, Special Project Coffees and Kosher Approved
Swiss Water Process coffees anywhere (for more
information go to www.caffeibis.com).
Forty of the coffees sold in Caffe Ibis are Certified
Fair Trade coffees. And, you might ask, just what
that means. From the brochure “Fair Trade…for
farmers, the earth and you” I will offer
some details, however, for more information contact
TransFair USA at www.transfairusa.org. Fair Trade
is a non-profit organization providing certification
of Fair Trade products in the United States while
promoting successful, empowering relationships
between farmers and businesses. It educates consumers
about Fair Trade and economic development. Also,
it pays farmers a decent, living wage for their
harvest, creates direct trade links to farmers
and cooperatives (bypassing exploitative middlemen),
provides access to affordable credit, helps farmers
to stay out of debt, and promotes sustainable
practices, like organic farming, that help protect
the environment. Through monitoring trade from
crop to cup, TransFair guarantees that Fair Trade
Certified products were grown and traded responsibly.
Fair Trade Certified coffee is grown by approximately
300 farmer cooperatives in over 20 countries,
making it possible for more than 550,000 farmers
and their families to earn a decent living wage.
Fair Trade gives consumers an opportunity to help
change the world while helping to protect the
environment.
An additional twenty-five coffees sold by Caffe
Ibis are certified by the Smithsonian as bird-
friendly. From its brochure “Bird-Friendly
Coffee…It’s Made in the Shade”
you can learn more about the process of shade-grown
coffee and its environmental benefits (available
through Caffe Ibis) or visit the website at www.si.edu/smbc
Coffee is big business around the world and can
probably be held responsible for major dramatic
events in history. We are limited by space in
this article to offer you any historical background
into coffee’s origin, the industry, the
producers or consumers, but we urge the interested
reader to research the fascinating and detailed
information that’s available.
Below I’ve listed some research ideas:
The Organic Coffee Association
The three biggest coffee companies in the U.S.:
MJB, Folgers’s and Nestle.
Pete Alfred – Pete’s Coffee, Berkley,
CA
Starbucks – Jerry Baldwin
Uncommon Grounds – how coffee changed the
world “
Chickaree Blends – from the south
Old World Coffees
Arabica Bean Coffee
Coffee producing countries: Yemen, Ethiopia, Puerto
Rico (and South
America)
Coffee as the most studied field after medicine
Coffee as the second largest trade commodity
(Just below oil and higher than rice and beans)
Shade tree production
Religious organizations concerned with fair trade
policy –
Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran,
Unitarian, Quakers
Search the internet for the history of coffee/laborers/growers
Allen Stokes (Alice - President of the Audubon
Society)
The Natural Products Expo
C – Coffee Consumption
A – According to
F – Fair Trade Standards
F - Fundamentally
E – Ethical!
I –Incorporating
B – Business
I – Integrity with
S – Supreme Specialty Coffees