At Red Rock Roasters, we have always included the prosperity and well-being of coffee producers among our top business goals.
Specialty coffee can be a harmful, deeply inequitable industry, and coffee marketing intentionally cultivates confusion around the meaning of words like "fair" and "sustainable."
The details about how we source coffee are below, but to clear up the confusion and put it simply: at Red Rock Roasters, first, we must do no harm. With every business decision, it's necessary to ask: am I going to cause harm to other people with this choice?
We believe that paying a fair price for great coffee is the best policy--it's also how you get the best-tasting coffee. To that end, we pay up to 300% of market prices for our conventional (non-certified) coffee. We buy from the same producers and green coffee importers, year after year, nurturing business partnerships over two decades old in many cases. We also import some coffees ourselves, and are committed to honoring those direct relationships over time, too.
Since our earliest days, we have supported coffeeland NGOs, in the past decade focusing on the Cafe Femenino Foundation and the International Women’s Coffee Alliance. These projects help fill in the gaps between what producers need and what they have and provide access to business opportunities.
We also believe in doing all we can do to live up to our commitments. Red Rock Roasters is the only New Mexico roaster to join Carbonfund.org's Carbonfree Partnership. Our Carbonfree® certification means we stand in true alignment with our commitment to building a healthy, sustainable industry.
We were the first roaster in New Mexico to sell Fair Trade certified coffees and to have our facility certified for Fair Trade processing. Our USDA Organic and Fair Trade USA certifications subject us to a high level of scrutiny and we're proud to be able to bear a close examination.
Red Rock Roasters also believes that charity must begin at home. In addition to our coffeelands commitments, we support local charities, including the Delancey Street Foundation, Roadrunner Food Bank, the New Mexico Philharmonic, Keshet Dance Company, Chatter, and others. It’s just what a good local business does.
Lastly, we value our employees and all the time and passion they pour into making our coffee so great. That’s why we pay a living wage and provide benefits.
We built our business on these practices. They have never prevented us from making money or from competing in the market. On the contrary, they are the key to our success. It’s our job to do right by everybody in the coffee supply chain today, so that we can count on having good coffee available to us tomorrow.
