Coffee starts in the field, and many specialty roasters prioritize ethical sourcing practices in order to source organic beans for their blends. Certification can help express this commitment to customers but not all certifications are equal.

Understanding the various standards, organizations and certifications found on coffee labels is important so you can determine what matters to you as a consumer. Certified organic production has many advantages such as reduced synthetic fertilizers and pesticides usage as well as providing farmers with premiums on market price for their product.

Organic certification can be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor, which may present challenges for small farms or co-ops who cannot afford the annual fee. Unfortunately, for this reason many farms fail to achieve USDA organic certification, but that does not indicate lower quality coffee beans produced.

Bird Friendly certification requires farms to adhere to Smithsonian’s stringent habitat standards and be subject to inspection by third-party bodies approved to do so – more stringent inspections than those carried out by USDA; certification must be renewed annually, just like with organic certification. As with its organic counterpart, Bird Friendly coffees also receive a premium on market price.

Farms that produce both organic and non-Organic coffee must take special care to maintain the proper separation. This means dedicating separate storage areas for each type, and regularly cleaning their harvesting, milling, and processing equipment between batches – otherwise any possible cross-contamination could revoke their organic certification status.

Cost concerns prevent many coffee-growing nations from attaining organic certification; however, alternatively-certified Bird Friendly coffees from growers who practice good farming practices but cannot yet receive this prestigious seal can still be purchased from growers who do so.

While some coffee buyers opt only for Certified Organic options, others will purchase non-organic varieties if their organic options don’t suit their preferences. Others might even choose non-Organic coffees which have met sustainability and social impact standards of other certification programs like Fair Trade or Rainforest Alliance certification programs.

Roasters must understand these differences to make informed purchasing decisions that benefit customers, the community and the planet. When working with organically certified coffees, it’s also beneficial to establish an inventory tracking system from green to roasted. At a roastery, this could simply involve color coding bins for Organic coffee vs non-Organic so the team can easily identify it when pulling samples throughout the day. We highly suggest Cropster as a tracking solution and having a dedicated area in the warehouse where this coffee will reside until ready for sale or use by consumers.