Change The Equation

All of us in Specialty Coffee agree that coffee producers are valuable, but we haven't agreed on how to assign that value, who assigns it, or how to convey it through the supply chain. Because we haven't decided how to tie the value to the consumer to the value to the producer, the determination of coffee value is made by the manipulatable commodities market.

At Torque we believe that the way forward is to reverse engineer the coffee value equation & go from value received to price paid. Proportional Pricing means simply that the value of a coffee is relative to the value it generates for the roaster. Based on that premise, Torque applied a Proportional Pricing equation in which the producers receive 20% of the retail value of every bag of roasted coffee.

At Torque we believe that all contributors are due their portion of value. By reverse engineering the coffee supply chain and tying the producer's value directly to the full value of the coffee, together we can change the equation.

Proportional Pricing© is simply a preset percentage of the value of roasted coffee that is due the coffee producer. Instead of the commodity market deciding what a coffee farmer's coffee is worth, the retail price decides its value. Your customers know the exact impact their purchase has on each coffee producer. No complex math, no 10 page reports, no long explanations, or strings attached. It's just the Producer's Portion.

Our vision is that all craft coffee roasters will embrace Proportional Pricing so that we can harness our collective super power to make coffee better. The exact percentage can vary, it is the direct action of valuing a producer's coffee based on a preset value equation that brings the coffee supply chain a little closer to equilibrium.

We would love to talk with any interested roaster, producer, exporter or importer and share how we make it work and how it changed our entire approach to coffee buying. This kind of radical approach is not for everyone, but it works for us and it works for coffee producers. We think it can work for others as well.

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