Benchmark Coffee Traders                                                                           

Mission and Concept:

Part of our family produces coffee at Sigri Estate in Papua New Guinea. The concept and mission for Benchmark is to represent the estate’s top grades, connect roasters with production, and to act as a true sourcing partner for our relationship coffees. We bring roasters an ability to source some of Papua New Guinea’s best coffees with a level of traceability that has not previously been possible for coffees from this origin.

Background:

We arrived at this concept after personally visiting roasters in America for a nearly one year. We found that top grades from PNG were underrepresented in America. We also saw that roasters increasingly prefer to source coffees in a more direct way, ethically, and with as much transparency and traceability as possible. We felt that we were in a unique position to partner with quality and relationship-focused roasters in this endeavor.

Why?

Coffee production in PNG is 85-90% smallholder coffees. Coffee, almost entirely, follows the same chain of custody: smallholder to cherry buyer to miller to exporter to importer to roaster. Changing hands this many times leads to three significant adverse outcomes:

1. the most vulnerable in the supply chain, the smallholders, are taken the most advantage of

2. Even a basic level of traceability becomes impossible.

3. Quality becomes very difficult to manage

Sigri Estate is one of the very few “single estates” in Papua New Guinea. From nursery to loading a container, to even an in-house export license, the estate can personally manage the entire production process. The enables protection of estate pickers, more consistent quality, possibilities to experiment and, with Benchmark, connection to roasters and end consumers with complete traceability. We’ve taken advantage of a really special opportunity to bring together production, sourcing, and roasting in a way that allows all parties to bring great PNG coffee to consumers in a socially responsible way.

Social Projects

Sigri Estate runs an incredible social program that benefits thousands of pickers throughout the year. The following are maintained year-round: Free housing for all pickers, free schooling for children, free healthcare, and free AIDS educational programs and testing. The estate is one of the main employers and economic contributors for the entire region.

Benchmark pays the estate directly for coffee. Direct payment ensures an ability to track your dollars and ensure that purchases directly support actual coffee production and social programs as opposed to reseller markups in a traditional model. Benchmark has also committed to annual charitable contributions of its own. This year, we donated roughly 10% of profits to social good projects. About half of this was allocated directly to the estate to be used for the children’s schools. This money will be used for new chairs, books, and school supplies. The other half was donated to relief efforts in Houston, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. As Benchmark is a young company, we do not yet have defined contribution goals, but we are fully committed to yearly contributions and will continue to report on our donations.

Thank you

Thank you for the relationship and your continued support. We know that roasters who work with us have chosen to support us and we do not take that for granted. Please let us know if there is anything at all we can do to further add value or to make your experience with us better in any way.

Sincerely,

Vikram