Partnering with Peace Coffee

Founded For Good

Peace Coffee didn't begin as Peace Coffee. It began as the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy (IATP), a nonprofit think tank created to help farmers cope with the American agriculture crisis of the 1980s.

In the 1990s, the IATP found new opportunities to connect with coffee farmers in the Chiapas region of Mexico. They discovered that the farmers struggled to make a living from their work because market prices for coffee were unstable and importers were often unwilling to provide a fair price for the coffee they grew.

Peace Coffee emerged as a sustainable solution to these problems. Long conversations between the farmers and IATP members led to the development of an innovative fair trade model that allowed Peace Coffee to thrive as a for-profit entity while ensuring the farmers were paid fairly for their product.

IATP shipped its first batch of coffee from Chiapas to Minneapolis in 1996. Since then, Peace Coffee has expanded to include a states-side coffee roasters’ cooperative that mirrors the structure of their coffee farmers’ cooperative. With the power of this cooperative behind it, Peace continues to sustain fair and transparent systems that benefit the farmers and communities where their coffee originates.

Local + B Corp Certified

One thing we love about Peace is that they’re right up the road from us. And we do mean that literally! Their HQ is four miles away from us, right in the middle of South Minneapolis. We love partnering with a coffee supplier that we can see reinvesting our community and many of our customers are drawn to Peace for the same reasons. (We’re reminded of their presence in our community every time we pass one of their bicycle couriers pedaling toward their next local coffee delivery!)

We also love that Peace Coffee is now a certified B Corporation. What’s a B Corporation? It’s a business that’s joined a global coalition of businesses who have chosen to put people and the planet’s wellbeing before profit. Achieving B Corp certification requires passing through a rigorous series of audits that prove they meet the highest standards of transparency, ethics and accountability, and Peace Coffee proudly received its certification in 2017.

Peace Coffee and Intermix Beverage

Our relationship with Peace Coffee began a decade ago when they began purchasing beverage products from us. Eventually, we became a service partner for them and, three years ago, we became one of their coffee distributors. We’ve watched a decade’s worth of community and industry change happen together, and we’re proud to be a distributor for a coffee cooperative that does good in our community and the communities of its farmers.