News from the Organic Sector

Fall 2007 We plan to get on with the USDA certification Real Soon Now.  Roastmaster has been delayed with more pressing financial & family matters.

Fall 2006 We discovered that having QAI certify our roasting plant would be about $3,000.  More or less.  We also discovered that the North Carolina Crop Improvement Association, who are affiliated with NC State University, are accredited by USDA, have certified a number of other roasters in NC, and will do the job for a fraction of QAI's price.

4/12/06 We had the good fortune at the SCAA conference to meet Joe Smillie from QAI (Quality Assurance International) who are in the business of certifying farms, stores, processors, and such for the USDA and other organizations worldwide.  It appears that having our roasting facility certified by USDA as an organic processor is straightforward, especially so if we roast only organic coffee.  No word on what this may cost, however.

1/23/06 We are considering, and will probably go ahead, with our plan to convert to all organic coffee.  That would make it much easier to become certified by the USDA as an organic products processor.  If you  handle only organics, though you still have to maintain all the records to show a paper trail from the grower to your customers, you don't have to have special procedures in place to segregate organic and conventional coffee, or to purge and clean equipment when switching from conventional to organic product processing. Going to all organic coffee presents, however, one large problem.  Not all origins are available organically grown, and even among those that are, there may be fewer choices of coffee.  Most Centrals and Indonesians are widely available, but Africans aren't.   There are virtually no organic Kenya's for example, and Ethiopia Harar is only now becoming available.  And the Kauai Coffee Company is a large agri-business, with no announced plans to grow any part of their production organically.

10/20/02 New USDA rules regarding the handling, labeling, and sale of organic products go into effect this month. If you haven't heard of this, it all began with the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 which mandated the USDA to make rules for organic products. The result is something called the National Organic Program (the standards are here; the complete document is 554 pages). There's good news and bad news. The good news for consumers is that the meaning of "organic" will be clearer and more consistent across all kinds of products, including coffee. The bad news is that it means Mountain City can no longer sell coffee labeled as "organic". All retailers and resellers of organic products should review the regulations to see how the new rules will affect their sales of those products and how they source them. We had a choice of becoming certified by USDA as a processor of organic products, or not. Becoming certified involves inspections, record keeping, and fees, as well as changing operating, cleaning, storage, and roasting procedures. It is something we would like to do, but for the moment we aren't able to, so the bottom line is we can't call any coffee we sell "organic". We have been offering three organically grown coffees: Sumatra, Peru (which we also used for French Roast), and Decaf Mexican. We will continue to offer the Sumatra under the name Gayoland (where it's grown); it will still be organically grown, under trees (shade grown), and fair trade (it is bought at the fair trade price, we just don't pay TransFair for the privilege of using their logo). We have a good stock of the Peru and some of the Mexican, so as long as they last, we'll continue to offer them, as Peru Norte (again the growing region), and as Decaf Mexican (still a tasty CO2 process). As a matter of fact, most of our French Roast will be made from the Peru.  [No longer true. - Ed., 6/1/03] Any products produced or purchased before October 21st go under the old rules, because those products are considered to be in "the stream of commerce". We'll stretch the stream a little so this week will be business as usual, but next week our labeling will have changed to reflect the new rules. We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause. We hope that within the next 12 months we can become certified by USDA so that we can resume supplying you with organic coffees. In the meantime, Mountain City will continue to roast and sell the best tasting coffee we can find. If we can answer and questions about the new organic rules –- or for that matter about anything related to coffee -– please don't hesitate to call or email. Randall Sluder Roastmaster