There’s so much to celebrate about 2022! 

Published 27 Dec 2022

After a couple of years growing very familiar with the office walls, we emerged from our lockdown cocoon in early 2022, ready and excited to hit the road.

Over the following months, our team visited friends and customers in almost every state and territory around Australia, reconnecting with long-time roasting partners and introducing ourselves to newer members of the MCM family. We practically buzzed with excitement during September’s MICE week, which saw us welcoming many interstate customers to our Brunswick HQ for the first time. We hosted online and in-person events both in Melbourne and on the road, including six extremely fun Let’s Cup tastings, showcasing the dedication, expertise and skill of our partners at origin and here in Australia. All in all, it was a year of sharing delicious coffees, engaging stories, and full-hearted belly laughs with our treasured coffee community – and we adored it. We missed you lovely people, and we’re so delighted to be spending time together again.

As our post-pandemic confidence grew, we looked to broader horizons, making plans for our first international travel since early 2020. In August, we dusted off the old Blundstones and booted up, with Aislinn heading to Colombia and Beau and Toshi spending time in Brazil. It was a joyous experience to reunite with our dear friends at origin, and to share our stories and learnings with customers back at home. 

For our team, it is a privilege and a responsibility to work directly with both producing and roasting communities, and we feel passionately about creating connection between these two parties. Spending time at origin is invaluable in strengthening our relationships, gaining understanding and context for the complexities of each country we source from and for securing the very best coffees we can for our customers. With that in mind, we are thrilled to be back at it, with trips to Ethiopia, Kenya, Guatemala, Rwanda, Bolivia and Brazil in the works
for 2023.

The year wasn’t without challenges. Extreme weather events, labour shortages, increased cost of production and the long-term effects of Covid-19 continued to play out at origin, affecting many producing communities greatly, and driving up pricing across all our offerings. This, along with the ongoing complexities and shortcomings of international shipping and a weak Australian dollar, led to many conversations amongst our team and with customers about how best to navigate forward. Ultimately, we doubled down on our core values of second-to-none quality, traceability, and transparency, executed with a focus on responsible business practices and authentic, honest communication. We are incredibly grateful for the expertise and guidance of our supply partners, and for the trust and goodwill of our customers through these uncertain times. We know that the work we do is supported and facilitated by a network of exceptional coffee professionals, and we feel unbelievably fortunate to have them by our side!

We reached a huge milestone in August when MCM officially gained B Corp certification, joining a global network of businesses dedicated to balancing purpose with profit. We are enormously proud of this achievement, which was a long-held aspiration and involved hundreds of hours of meticulous work for our team and partners. 

The rigorous certification process held us accountable to our own high goals and standards and enabled us to benchmark ourselves against the very best and most sustainably operated businesses all over the world. It’s reinforced our commitment to act thoughtfully and responsibly across every aspect of our operations – ultimately leading to the growth and evolution of our business and our team. While our journey doesn’t end here, it’s a huge step in the pursuit of using our business as a force for good.

Outside of our core operations, we continue to place time, energy and resources towards exploring and improving our broader impact on the coffee industry and the communities we belong to – and remain steadfast in our belief that collective action is a powerful force for positive change. To this end, in 2022 we fulfilled our third year running as both data and financial donors to the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide, which collects data from specialty

focused roasters, importer and exporters around the world and collates it into a price discovery tool that can be leveraged by producing communities to earn more for their crop.

Equally important is our commitment to minimise the effects of climate change, most pressingly for vulnerable coffee producing communities. Since 2018, we have been passionate supporters of World Coffee Research, who use a scientific approach to combat climate change through practical, hands-on research and training for farmers. As part of their Check Off program, we donate $0.02 for every kilogram of green coffee that we sell. We currently have five roasting customers also contributing to the program, a number we would love to see grow in 2023… so please reach out if you are interested in learning how!  

Additionally, we have operated as a Carbon Neutral business since July 2020, offsetting 100% of all carbon produced in our supply chain – including the growing, milling and shipping of our coffees from origin, and through to delivery at your roasting site. Our goal for the current financial year is to become certified through Climate Active, the Australian government’s certification body known for its rigorous testing and benchmarking process. Once we are Climate Active, all green coffee purchased from MCM from July 2021 onwards will be certified Carbon Neutral and will not need to be offset by roasters or cafes pursuing Carbon Neutral status, making it easier and more achievable for our roasting partners to make this change too! 

Finally, here at home, we maintained our commitment towards solidarity with First Nations people, progressing in the complex learning and unlearning required through self-education and engagement with First Nations led organisations. Throughout the year we continued with regular contributions to ANTAR, a national advocacy organisation dedicated to achieving justice, rights and respect for First Nations People, and in November we participated in a powerful and moving truth telling workshop with Children’s Ground – sparking important and necessary reflection and conversation.

As we look back on the year that has passed, we are overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and connectivity with our treasured community of producers, exporters, customers and, of course, our wonderful team. We simply could not do what we do without the friendship, trust and enthusiasm of our partners – thank you to each and every one of you. We can’t wait to see more of each other in 2023!

With Love,

Fleur, Aislinn, Beau, Toshi and Rafa x