Climate change poses a growing threat to coffee’s global supply chain. But it could also present new opportunities for sustainable business.
NCA 2015 Convention
Resources You Can Use From the 2015 NCA Convention
By Bill Murray, NCA President & CEO
If a tree falls in the forest…?
One set of changes we’ve been making is intended to keep you informed – we’re evolving version 1.0 of a new NCA Communication Strategy.
We’re now issuing “Member Alerts” on breaking topics on an as-needed basis, which are complemented every Friday by the Coffee Reporter Weekly – a quick, easy-to-read recap of industry news and NCA happenings. Soon you’ll be seeing the launch of a quarterly Scientific Affairs bulletin.
We’re also re-launching our NCA blog – starting with this post. Our blog posts will be less formal, more conversational, and from a variety of authors. (Contact Kyra Auffermann if you want to guest-blog, at kmauffermann@ncausa.org.)
To start, we’re passing along some fantastic resources from last month’s NCA Convention. Of course, we’d like to see all of our members at Convention, but we know that budgets and workload don’t make that possible. Regardless of whether you were at Convention or not, you can still access many of the materials and expertise that were shared with us. Continue reading
5 Reasons Why Coffee’s Future is Brighter than Ever
The following post originally appeared on PadillaCRT’s blog, “The Buzz Bin”
This month, I attended the most buzz-worthy conference of the year. No, it wasn’t SXSW (although the crowd in attendance was probably equally stimulated) – it was the National Coffee Association’s Annual Convention.
And, yes, it was just as delicious as it sounds.
Between sipping samples from vendors around the globe, I absorbed a lot about coffee’s past, present and future. My lessons began with the legend of Kaldi the goat herder, who first discovered Coffea Arabica when his flock became unusually frisky after ingesting some bright red berries while grazing in the Ethiopian hills, and progressed to philosophical discussions on the increasingly dynamic, venture capital-backed Third Wave movement.
While coffee’s trajectory thus far is a fascinating one, the key insight I left with is that the industry’s future is exceptionally bright.

Photo credit: International Women’s Coffee Alliance via PadillaCRT
Here’s why: Continue reading
“It’s All About the People.”
Nominations for NCA Awards are due September 15 – learn more.
“This year’s Volunteer of the Year recipient was nominated because of his enthusiasm, his dedication, his willingness to step up and take on any task that needs doing,” said Bruce Goldsmith, Chairman of the NCA Board and President, Baronet Coffee, Inc., at the NCA 2015 Annual Convention in Charleston, S.C. on March 13, 2015.
Despite his legendary dedication, Ron Contaxis, vice president of sales, Wilbur Curtis Company, claims that he doesn’t deserve all the credit.